A Kenyan man was convicted on Monday plotting a 9/11-style attack on an American building on behalf of the terrorist organization al-Shabab.
A federal jury in Manhattan found Cholo Abdi Abdullah guilty of all six charges he faced for conspiring to hijack a plane and smash it into a building, court records show.
He will be sentenced next March and faces a mandatory prison sentence of at least 20 years.
Handout / Criminal Investigation and Detection Group
Abdullah represented himself during the trial, which began last week. He refused to make an opening statement and did not actively participate in questioning witnesses.
In court documents filed ahead of the trial, prosecutors say Abdullah intended “to merely sit passively during the trial, not to oppose the prosecution and whatever the outcome, he would accept the outcome because he doesn’t believe this is a legitimate system.”
Lawyers appointed to represent Abdullah in his self-defense did not respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.
Federal prosecutors, who rested their case Thursday, say Abdullah plotted the attack for four years, undergoing extensive training in explosives and how to operate in secret and avoid detection.
He then moved to the Philippines in 2017 and began training to become a commercial pilot.
Abdullah had almost completed his two-year pilot training when he was arrested on local charges in 2019.
The following year he was handed over to US law enforcement authorities, who charged him with terrorism-related crimes.
Prosecutors said Abdullah also researched ways to break open a cockpit door and information “about the tallest building in a major American city” before he was caught.
The State Department designated Al-Shabab, which means “the youth” in Arabic, as a foreign terrorist organization in 2008. The militant group is an Al Qaeda affiliate that has been fighting to establish an Islamic state in Somalia based on Sharia law.
