Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, ex-Manitoba student, accused of supporting al-Qaeda

Justice officials in the United States have charged Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, a former University of Manitoba student, with conspiracy to support al-Qaeda efforts to carry out attacks in the U.S.

Al Farekh, a U.S. citizen who studied in Winnipeg, allegedly worked with others to provide "material support," specifically "personnel to be used in support of efforts to kill American citizens and members of the U.S. military abroad," the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release Thursday.

Authorities said he travelled from Canada to Pakistan to train with al-Qaeda​. He made his first court appearance before a federal judge in New York on Thursday afternoon, after being deported from Pakistan to the U.S.

Bearded and wearing light blue prison attire, Al Farekh said nothing and entered no plea during his brief court appearance. He was ordered held without bail. His attorney did not comment.

"Today's arrest demonstrates that there is no escape from the long reach of our law for American citizens who seek to do harm to our country on behalf of violent terrorists," Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement.

The allegations against Al Farekh sadden Shahina Siddiqui, executive director of the Islamic Social Services Association in Winnipeg and a board member with the National Council of Canadian Muslims.

"It's devastating," she told CBC News.

"I mean, it's such a waste of a young life, and just this feeling of what could we have done to to help him?"

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Siddiqui and other Muslim leaders in Manitoba have been working on anti-radicalization programs to keep young people away from extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State.

Trio allegedly had plan to become martyrs

Al Farekh, who was born in Texas, and two other co-conspirators were students at the University of Manitoba in 2007 when authorities said they started watching al-Qaeda propaganda and hatching a plan to become martyrs abroad, an FBI agent wrote in a January complaint.

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Al Farekh and the two others flew to Karachi, Pakistan, on round-trip tickets in March 2007 after selling their belongings, disconnecting their phones and buying mountain boots that authorities said are commonly worn by al-Qaeda fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the complaint says.

One of Al Farekh's co-conspirators, Canadian citizen Ferid Imam, trained three men on how to use AK-47s and other weapons at an al-Qaeda training camp in 2008, the complaint says.

The three — Najibullah Zazi, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin — were later convicted of plotting to bomb New York City's subway system and are co-operating with federal authorities. Imam, who went by the name "Yousef," has been indicted on separate terrorism charges.

In 2009, the third Canadian co-conspirator sent a letter to his relatives, encouraging them to come to Pakistan, the complaint says.

"If you decide to come to Pakistan don't tell them that you are coming to meet me," he wrote, according to the court documents. "And if your plan is to come to Pakistan to try and talk to me of going back with you then I swear by Allah (s.w.t) that will never happen."

Read the U.S. complaint against Muhanad Mahmoud Al-Farekh below.

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