Man tied to case of missing Somalis pleads guilty

By providing a rental car for friends fleeing the country, Abdow Munye Abdow found himself pulled into one of the country's largest counterterrorism investigations since 9/11. On Tuesday, the Chanhassen man closed the book on his chapter, pleading guilty in federal court to obstruction of justice.

Abdow, 26, rented a car used by some Twin Cities men of Somali descent to leave Minnesota on their way to returning to their homeland to fight. But when FBI agents questioned him about a trip he took to San Diego, he lied.

His attorney, Earl Gray, said Tuesday that Abdow was duped into renting the car, and he returned to Minnesota as soon as he realized that.

"They took advantage of him," Gray said.

According to the criminal complaint, Abdow was a passenger in a rental car stopped by the Nevada Highway Patrol last October near Las Vegas. Abdow and others in the car told a state trooper they were going to San Diego for a wedding.

Two days later, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol officer stopped two of the people who had been in Abdow's rental car. They, along with a third person, had been dropped off by a taxi at the U.S.-Mexico border south of San Diego. One of those men was Cabdulaahi Ahmed Faarax, who investigators say was active here in the recruiting of young men to fight in Somalia.

They eventually left for their homeland, according to court documents.

FBI agents interviewed Abdow back in the Twin Cities. He said that he and a friend went to Las Vegas after Abdow had a fight with his wife. After reaching Las Vegas, he claimed they immediately returned to Minnesota. He said no one else was in the car with them.

He later said that there were three others in the rental car but that he only knew them by their nicknames.

In reality, he knew the men and took them to San Diego.

At the time, Minneapolis was at the center of an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of up to 20 local men, nearly all of Somali descent. More than a dozen men have been indicted, most for providing support to terrorists in the ongoing civil war in Somalia.

Six of the men who left have been killed, including the first American suicide bomber. Several have pleaded guilty to terror-related charges. Others remain at large, including Faarax.

Abdow faces a sentence of 10 to 16 months in prison. In return for his plea, the U.S. Attorneys Office will not seek a terrorism-related enhancement to his sentence. U.S. District Judge James Rosenbaum, who accepted Abdow's plea, will sentence him at a later date.

Source: StarTribune.com
http://www.startribune.com/local/92779939.html?page=2&c=y
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