Homeland Security News

A federal jury on Wednesday found three men guilty of plotting to bomb a mosque and apartment complex housing Somali refugees in Kansas.

Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen were convicted of one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of conspiracy against civil rights. Wright was convicted of a charge of lying to the FBI. Sentencing is set for June 27.

The three men were indicted in October 2016 for plotting an attack for the day after the presidential election in the meatpacking town of Garden City, about 220 miles (350 kilometers) west of Wichita.

Read more: AP

The man who murdered six Muslim men in 2017 told a social worker several months after the killings that he wished there had been more victims, evidence tabled in court Monday indicated.

In her report tabled by the Crown, social worker Guylaine Cayouette said Alexandre Bissonnette told her he had idolized serial killers since his adolescence and he wanted to make a splash of his own.

"I regret not having killed more people," Bissonnette reportedly said in September 2017, eight months after he entered a Quebec City mosque and shot dead six men following evening prayers. "The victims are in the sky and I'm living in hell."

Read more: National Observer (CAN)

A former St. Catherine University student accused of trying to join al-Qaida must stay in federal custody as she awaits trial on terrorism, arson and false statements charges, a judge ordered Tuesday.

While U.S. Magistrate Judge Steven Rau acknowledged 19-year-old Tnuza Jamal Hassan's young age moved him to welcome a challenge to her detention, he pointed to new evidence in ordering that she remain jailed. Hassan has been in federal custody since her January arrest after allegedly setting a series of fires on the St. Paul campus where she once attended classes. The fires came months after Hassan allegedly traveled as far as Dubai in a purported attempt to join al-Qaida in Afghanistan and weeks after she was turned away from boarding a flight to Ethiopia.

Read more: Minneapolis Star Tribune

Police are questioning a man on suspicion of terrorism offences as officers search a residential property as part of an “intelligence-led operation”.

The 26-year-old was detained by counter-terrorism officers in Rochester, Kent, on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

A police spokesman said the suspect was being detained at a police station in the south-east for questioning after his arrest on Wednesday.

He said: “A 26-year-old man from Kent has today been arrested by counter-terrorism policing south-east officers on suspicion of being concerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism under section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

Read more: The Guardian (UK)

An American citizen imprisoned for seven months without charges by the U.S. military as an enemy combatant will be transferred from Iraq to another country, the government has told a court, giving his lawyers three days to challenge the move.

At the direction of U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the District of Columbia, the U.S. Justice Department publicly disclosed its plans in a partly redacted filing early Tuesday afternoon with the name of the receiving country blacked out.

Two countries were under consideration, the government has previously said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing the detainee, whose name has not been disclosed, said it would seek to block the move and asked for a hearing late Wednesday or Thursday morning.

“Forcibly rendering” the detainee to another country “would be an unconscionable violation of his constitutional rights,” ACLU attorney Jonathan Hafetz said in a statement, adding, “the government has no legal authority to detain this U.S. citizen in the first place, and it clearly lacks any legal authority to transfer him to the custody of another government.”

Read more:  The Washington Post