Jurors on Tuesday delivered split verdicts in a case that stemmed from the search for a three-year-old boy who went missing from Georgia and was found dead hundreds of miles away at a squalid compound in northern New Mexico.
Four members of the family were on trial. Three were found guilty on federal kidnapping charges. Two were convicted on related terrorism charges. The boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, was one of the two people found guilty of terrorism-related charges.
His brother-in-law, Lucas Morton, was found guilty of the same charges, as well as conspiracy to commit kidnapping resulting in death and kidnapping resulting in death.
Prosecutors told jurors that Wahhaj and other members of his family had fled with the toddler to a remote stretch of the high desert so they could engage in firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government. It was all tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.
Jurors reached their decision on Tuesday after deliberating for two and a half days. They heard weeks of testimony from children who had lived with their parents at the compound, other family members, firearms experts, doctors and forensic technicians. The defendants, who are Muslim, argued that federal authorities targeted them because of their religion.
Wahhaj’s brother-in-law Lucas Morton, was also convicted of terrorism charges, conspiracy to commit kidnapping, and kidnapping that resulted in the boy’s death. Wahhaj’s sisters were convicted on the kidnapping charges.
The case gained national attention in August 2018 after a police raid on the Taos county compound resulted in the rescue of 11 children, ranging in age from one to 15, who were “skinny, their ribs showed, they were in very poor hygiene and very scared”, according to the Taos county sheriff, Jerry Hogrefe.
There was little food or fresh water at the compound, which consisted of a small travel trailer buried in the ground and covered by plastic with no water, plumbing and electricity, Hogrefe said.
Court documents filed in August say Wahhaj was training children on weapons at the compound near the Colorado border to commit school shootings.
The discovery was prompted by a months-long search for a three-year-old child, Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, who went missing in Atlanta, Georgia, in November. According to social media posts by the boy’s mother, his father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, disappeared with the child after saying he was taking him to the park.
In a January Facebook Live video, the boy’s mother pleaded for her son’s return. “This is about my son, he is sick. I don’t know if he is alive … I don’t know his condition,” said Hakima Ramzi. She said her son had physical and mental disabilities.
According to a family member who spoke to the Guardian, these health difficulties pushed the faction of the family to skip town – believing that the boy was being possessed by jinns, or evil spirits, and in need of an exorcism ritual.
After days of searching, the decomposed remains of three-year-old Abdul-Ghani were found in an underground tunnel on the compound. Forensic specialists said the child had died several months before the recovery of his body.
Prosecutors recounted the hurried journey the four defendants and their children took from Georgia to Alabama and eventually New Mexico. They left nearly everything behind, including other family members who sent numerous texts, emails and social media messages pleading with them to bring the boy home.
“They were running and hiding because they knew what they had done was wrong,” George Kraehe told jurors.
Siraj Ibn Wahhaj represented himself in court. He told jurors that the federal government was presenting a false narrative and that they needed to consider only the facts as they deliberated his fate and that of his two sisters and his brother-in-law.
“The government portrayed me to look like a monster,” he said, explaining that his family was close-knit and they were trying to protect his son from evil spirits. He said they used a ritual known as ruqyah in which passages from the Qur’an are recited.
He told jurors it was one thing to be able to defend one’s self from a physical attack, but that a spiritual attack – which he believed was happening to his son – required prayer.
Defense attorneys for Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj told jurors that they played no role in the boy’s death and were only at the compound to care for their own children as they endured inhospitable conditions that included cold temperatures and harsh winds. They talked about how one of the women searched the internet to find information on trapping squirrels and birds, so the family could eat more.
Prosecutors argued that the women were part of what they described as a “sick end-of-times scheme” that evolved after the boy’s death, and that they had “an avalanche of evidence” against all four defendants.
The defendants adopted what prosecutors called “a number of unique beliefs that set them on a dangerous path”.
A sentencing date has yet to be scheduled.
