BOSTON: A Massachusetts man charged with plotting to behead police officers in an effort to help Daesh was due in court on Wednesday for the start of his trial on charges including conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism.
Federal prosecutors charge that the man, David Daoud Wright, along with his uncle and a friend, had first plotted to kill the woman who organized a 2015 “Draw Mohammed” contest in Garland, Texas. But they contend Wright’s uncle, Usamaah Abdullah Rahim, lost patience and in June 2015 told Wright and the third man that he instead planned to kill police officers.
Law enforcement had been monitoring communications between the three and overheard the threat, prosecutors said. When police approached Rahim in a Boston supermarket parking lot to question him, he drew a large knife and officers shot him dead.
Police later arrested Wright, who lived in the Boston suburb of Everett, and a third conspirator, Nicholas Rovinski. Wright has denied all wrongdoing. Rovinski last year pleaded guilty to two criminal counts of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
If Wright is found guilty of the charge of conspiracy to commit acts of terrorism transcending national boundaries, he could face a life sentence. He is also charged with conspiracy to support a terrorist organization and obstruction of justice, allegedly for telling Rahim to destroy his phone before attacking police, as well as for attempting to destroy all information on his computer.
Prosecutors said the men initially wanted to behead New York resident Pamela Geller, who had organized the Texas event in May highlighting cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, images that many Muslims consider blasphemous. Two gunmen had attacked that event, and were shot dead by police.
Geller contends her event was intended as a demonstration of the free-speech rights protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution.
Rahim’s family have denied he had shown any signs of radicalization.
Trial opens for American in Daesh-linked police beheading plot
Trial opens for American in Daesh-linked police beheading plot
Protesters try to attack driver after truck speeds through anti-Iran demonstration in Los Angeles
LOS ANGELES: Los Angeles police responded Sunday after somebody drove a U-Haul box truck down a street crowded with marchers demonstrating in support of the Iranian people, causing protesters to scramble out of the way and then run after the speeding vehicle to try to attack the driver.
The U-Haul truck, with its side mirrors shattered, was stopped several blocks away and surrounded by police cars. ABC7 news helicopter footage showed officers keeping the crowd at bay as demonstrators swarmed the truck, throwing punches at the driver and thrusting flagpoles through the driver’s side window.
The police department confirmed its officers were on the scene but didn’t immediately say if anyone was arrested.
Two people were evaluated by paramedics and both declined treatment, the Los Angeles Fire Department said.
Several hundred people had gathered Sunday afternoon in the Westwood neighborhood to protest against the Iranian theocracy. The LA police department eventually issued a dispersal order, and by 5 p.m. only about a hundred protesters were still at the scene, ABC7 reported.
Activists say a crackdown on nationwide protests in Iran has killed more than 530 people. Protesters flooded the streets in Iran’s capital of Tehran and its second-largest city again Sunday.
