Mohammed Abdullah Warsame (born August 12, 1973Affidavit of Kiann Vandenover, in support of pre-trial detention. February 2004) is a

Canadian citizen Canadian nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of Canada. The primary law governing these regulations is the Citizenship Act, which came into force on February 15, 1977 and is applicable to all provinces and t ...

who was arrested in 2003 by American

police The police are Law enforcement organization, a constituted body of Law enforcement officer, people empowered by a State (polity), state with the aim of Law enforcement, enforcing the law and protecting the Public order policing, public order ...

(FBI) in

Minneapolis Minneapolis is a city in Hennepin County, Minnesota, United States, and its county seat. With a population of 429,954 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the state's List of cities in Minnesota, most populous city. Locat ...

. He was accused of attending an

Afghan training camp 300px, Terrorists who trained at camps in Afghanistan and fought in insurgencies around the world during the 1990s An Afghan jihadist camp, or an Afghan training camp, is a term used to describe a camp or facility used for militant training loca ...

and fighting alongside

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

forces in the country,

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

, Small Business Committee
Testimony of Janice L. Kephart
, November 17, 2005 and charged him with conspiring to provide support to terrorists. On June 4, 2025, Warsame was arrested in

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

by the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

after allegedly telling an employee of

Old Brewery Mission The Old Brewery Mission is a resource for homeless men and women in Quebec, Canada. History The Old Brewery was founded in 1889 by two women, Mina Douglas and Eva Findlay, who started serving hot meals to Montrealers in need. In the early 20th ...

that he wished to commit a large-scale attack and that he knew how to manufacture

explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ex ...

Life

Warsame emigrated to

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

from

Somalia Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, th ...

in 1989. In 1995 he married American Fartun Farah in an

arranged marriage Arranged marriage is a type of Marriage, marital union where the bride and groom are primarily selected by individuals other than the couple themselves, particularly by family members such as the parents. In some cultures, a professional matchmaki ...

.Pulse of the

Twin Cities Twin cities are a special case of two neighboring cities or urban centres that grow into a single conurbation – or narrowly separated urban areas – over time. There are no formal criteria, but twin cities are generally comparable in stat ...

,
Mohammed Warsame Detained in Secrecy for One Month
While she lived in Minneapolis, Warsame continued to live and work in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

; twice travelling to the United States for a three-month period to stay with his wife. In 1998, a daughter named Maryam was born to the couple. From 2000-2001, Warsame said he was intrigued by the "utopian" society he had heard existed in Afghanistan, and travelled to the country where he attended two

s using the kunya name ''Abu Maryam''. He is accused of having sent $2000 to a militant he met at one of the camps and teaching English in the camps and at a nearby medical clinic. He is additionally said to have fought

Northern Alliance The Northern Alliance ( ''Da Šumāl E'tilāf'' or ''Ettehād Šumāl''), officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan ( ''Jabha-ye Muttahid-e barāye Afğānistān''), was a military alliance of groups that op ...

troops twice to stabilize Taliban control of the country, and to have eaten meals with

Osama bin Laden Osama bin Laden (10 March 19572 May 2011) was a militant leader who was the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda. Ideologically a pan-Islamist, Bin Laden participated in the Afghan ''mujahideen'' against the Soviet Union, and support ...

.Minnesota

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Legal experts question secrecy around Warsame case
February 4, 2004 In early 2001, Warsame asked a militant leader if the organisation would pay to bring his wife and child over from the United States, but he was informed that he was being asked to leave, and they would pay his April airfare to return to Canada.MacLeon, Ian.

Ottawa Citizen The ''Ottawa Citizen'' is an English-language daily newspaper owned by Postmedia Network in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. History Established as the Bytown ''Packet'' in 1845 by William Harris (journalist), William Harris, it was renamed the ''Ci ...

,
The warning lights were all blinking red
", February 23, 2008 He reported that he "grew disillusioned" with the militants, and returned home. The following year he moved to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

permanently with his wife and daughter, and enrolled at the

Minneapolis Community and Technical College Minneapolis College (formerly Minneapolis Community and Technical College) is a Public college, public community college in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It has one of the most diverse student populations in the state and enrolls nearly 11,100 credit ...

, where he also tutored

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...

students.

2003 arrest

He was approached by the U.S.

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...

(FBI) on December 8, 2003, and volunteered to be interviewed, and told them about his time spent in Afghanistan. He was arrested the following day and held in

secret detention Secrecy is the practice of hiding information from certain individuals or groups who do not have the "need to know", perhaps while sharing it with other individuals. That which is kept hidden is known as the secret. Secrecy is often controver ...

Hennepin County Hennepin County ( ) is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of Minnesota. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 1,281,565, and was estimated to be 1,273,334 in 2024, making it the List of counties in ...

Jail for two weeks, during which police registered him under an anonymous name and didn't allow a

paper trail ''Paper Trail'' is the sixth studio album by American rapper T.I., released September 30, 2008, on Grand Hustle Records and Atlantic Records. He began to write songs for the album as he awaited trial for federal weapons and possession charges ...

when

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Belgium, Hungary and Si ...

Dan Scott met with Warsame.Minnesota Public Radio
Terrorism cases: Highly complex and a bit bizarre
July 25, 2005 He was transferred to

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, and indicted on January 21, 2004. During this time, he alleged that they tried to convince him to lie and say that

Zacarias Moussaoui Zacarias Moussaoui (, '; born 30 May 1968) is a French member of al-Qaeda who pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court to conspiring to kill citizens of the United States as part of the 9/11 attacks. He is serving life imprisonment without the ...

, whom he had seen at a mosque, had confessed to him of being part of the

9/11 The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

plot. When he refused, he said they charged him with supporting

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war aga ...

. The FBI originally claimed that he lied to them, and charged him with providing false information. He was later listed as having been fully honest with law enforcement from the beginning of his questioning.

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Man linked to al Qaeda indicted
January 22, 2004 His lawyers contend that the nearly six-year wait for his trial is the longest any person has been held without trial in American history.

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Ottawa not saying if Canadian linked to al-Qaeda can return
June 15, 2009 On May 20, 2009, federal prosecutors announced that Warsame pleaded guilty to one count of "conspiring to support al-Qaida", with the remaining charges dismissed.

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Suspect pleads guilty to supporting al-Qaeda
May 20, 2009 In May 2009 Warsame pleaded guilty in a plea bargain. Four of the five charges against him were dropped. He pleaded guilty to "conspiring to provide material support and resources to Al-Qaida". According to Warsame's lawyers, he acknowledged attending a training camp, in 2000, but he had not done so out of a desire to engage in Jihad. Rather, he had initially traveled to Afghanistan under the impression it was a kind of Muslim utopia. He found it wasn't, and wanted to return to his life in North America, but he had run out of funds. He attended the camp because he would be fed there. According to his lawyers he did send funds to someone he had met at the camp. But it wasn't a donation. That individual had loaned him enough money to fly back to Canada. And the funds he sent back were a repayment of that loan.

Namesakes

According to the ''

Minneapolis Star Tribune ''The Minnesota Star Tribune'', formerly the ''Minneapolis Star Tribune'', is an American daily newspaper based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As of 2023, it is Minnesota's largest newspaper and the seventh-largest in the United States by circula ...

'' another Minneapolis man named "Mohammed Warsame"—Ahmed Mohammed Warsame—had his application for US citizenship delayed for over two years due to sharing a name with Mohammed Warsame. Ahmed Warsame is also born in Somalia. He emigrated to the US at 17 years old in 1995, and completed his high school education in Minneapolis, where he had lived ever since. Marilu Cabrera, an immigration official, blamed a two-year delay in the FBI's responses to requests for fingerprint checks for the delay in processing Warsame's application. She said that 30,000 requests for fingerprint checks submitted in May 2006 had not been processed until 2008.

References

External links

Terror suspect freed upon arrival in Canada: lawyer
October 11, 2010 {{DEFAULTSORT:Warsame, Mohammed 1973 births Living people Canadian extrajudicial prisoners of the United States