Archive photo: Ajay Suresh, CC BY 2.0.
A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted Halima Salman, a 27-year-old U.S. citizen and former Brooklyn resident, of receiving military-type training from ISIS in Syria, the Justice Department announced Tuesday.
The verdict followed a two-week trial before U.S. District Judge Natasha C. Merle, according to the department’s announcement. ISIS is a designated foreign terrorist organization. The case concerned training Salman received in Syria, not a newly reported attack in the United States.
The department said the evidence at trial showed that Salman’s parents traveled with her and her eight siblings out of the United States in September and October 2016, ultimately bound for ISIS-controlled territory in Syria.
In late 2016 or early 2017, when Salman was 18 and married to an ISIS fighter, she voluntarily sought military-type training and received authorization from ISIS to carry ammunition and an assault rifle, prosecutors said.
A document certifying that she completed the training was found on her husband’s cellphone after it was recovered from the battlefield, according to the announcement. The device also contained photographs and a video that prosecutors cited as evidence of her involvement.
The department identified the training unit as Khatiba Nusaybah, a military battalion made up of female ISIS members. The FBI’s New York Field Office investigated the case, which was prosecuted by the Eastern District of New York with assistance from the Justice Department’s National Security Division.
The announcement did not give a sentencing date or announce a sentence. Tuesday’s development was the jury’s conviction following trial.
JBizNews Desk | Brooklyn
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