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Old Dominion Shooter Had IS Ties 03/13 06:25
(AP) -- Court documents show less than two years after Mohamed Bailor Jalloh
was released from prison for attempting to aid the Islamic State, he opened
fire in a classroom at Virginia's Old Dominion University on Thursday before
ROTC students subdued and killed him.
The shooting that left one person dead and another two injured has raised
questions about why Jalloh, who the FBI identified as the gunman, was
imprisoned and the conditions of his release -- with some elected officials
questioning how someone with known ties to the Islamic State was able to carry
out such an attack.
"The horrific tragedy that occurred today on ODU's campus never should have
happened," U.S. Rep. Jen Kiggans, who represents the congressional district
neighboring the university, wrote on Facebook.
After Jalloh pleaded guilty in October 2016 to providing material support to
a designated foreign terrorist organization -- the Islamic State group -- a
federal judge sentenced him in 2017 to an 11-year prison term with credit for
time served retroactive to his July 2016 arrest.
Jalloh was released from federal custody Dec. 23, 2024. It wasn't
immediately clear why his release from prison was moved up. Inmates can get
time off of their sentences for a variety of reasons, but it isn't known if
that happened in this case.
He was on supervised release, which is comparable to probation, when he
carried out the attack on Thursday. Based on his release date, that would've
run into 2029.
Confessions to undercover agents
Jalloh's October 2016 plea came after a three-month sting operation in which
he, then 26, confessed to an undercover FBI agent that he was thinking about
carrying out an attack similar to the 2009 shootings at Fort Hood, which left
13 people dead. Authorities launched the 2016 operation after Jalloh made
contact with Islamic State members in Africa earlier that year.
Jalloh later told the informant that the Islamic State group had asked if he
wanted to participate in an attack. He tried to donate $500 to the group, but
the money actually went to an account controlled by the FBI, according to court
documents.
Jalloh then tried to buy an AR-15 assault rifle from a Virginia gun store
but was turned away because he lacked the proper paperwork. The affidavit says
he returned the next day and bought a different assault rifle. Prosecutors said
the rifle was rendered inoperable before Jalloh left the store, unbeknownst to
Jalloh. He was arrested the following day.
Debate over sentencing
The Justice Department in 2017 requested a 20-year prison sentence for
Jalloh, noting that he had made multiple attempts to join the Islamic State and
had attempted to acquire a gun to carry out a murder plot.
"The defendant was fully aware of what he was doing, and the consequences of
those actions. His only misgivings seemed to be a fear that he would waver at
the critical moment," prosecutors wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
They added: "By putting the idea of this murder plot into religious terms,
and by suggesting that murdering members of the US military would be a path to
heaven, the defendant showed how strongly committed he was to the deadly
ideology" of the Islamic State.
Jalloh's lawyers asked for a sentence of 6 years in prison and requested
that he be placed in a facility that provides residential drug treatment for
inmates with addiction and substance abuse issues.
U.S. District Judge Liam O'Grady, an appointee of former President George W.
Bush, sentenced him instead to 11 years in prison.
The judge also ordered Jalloh to participate in a program for substance
abuse testing and treatment and mental health treatment, and requested that he
be evaluated for the federal prison system's residential drug program.
Completing the Residential Drug Abuse Program can reduce an inmate's prison
sentence by up to a year, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons. It wasn't
immediately clear if Jalloh qualified for the program. Normally, inmates
serving sentences for terrorism-related offenses aren't eligible.
In addition, some inmates who stay out of trouble in prison can reduce their
sentence by earning up to 54 days of good conduct time credit for each year of
their sentence. However, under the 2018 prison reform law known as the First
Step Act, inmates convicted of terrorism-related offenses are not eligible for
such credit.
Troubled shooter lured by radical cleric
Little is publicly known about Jalloh, who was a naturalized citizen from
Sierra Leone. But court documents depict him as a troubled man who was
radicalized by Anwar al-Awlaki, a well-known American imam who became an
al-Qaida propagandist.
The Virginia Army National Guard confirmed he served as a specialist from
2009 until 2015, when he was honorably discharged. Jalloh told a government
informant he quit the National Guard after hearing lectures from al-Awlaki,
according to a 2016 FBI affidavit filed in his criminal case.
In a letter to the federal judge that presided over his sentencing, Jalloh
wrote: "I feel deep regret in having been driven by my emotions rather than my
intellect and becoming involved with such an evil organization. ... I reject
and deplore terrorism and any groups associated with it, especially ISIL."
He wrote that he started using drugs after his girlfriend ended their
six-year relationship.
"The pain I felt internally was unbearable, and drugs and alcohol were the
only things that took that pain away," Jalloh wrote. "I started doing
marijuana, coke and mushrooms using one of them at least on a daily basis in
order to kill the pain I was in and to fill in the void I felt internally."
The letter itself remains under seal, but his lawyer included excerpts of it
in his sentencing memorandum.
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