One of three men accused of conspiring to join the Islamic State admitted Friday that secret recordings captured his talk of getting martyred and helping to send fighters into the United States, but dismissed it as empty boasting.
Under questioning from a federal prosecutor, Guled Omar identified his voice in tape-recorded statements. But Omar testified Friday that what he said on the tapes recorded by a paid FBI informant months before his April 2015 arrest wasn't true.
"I was trying to sound like a big, bad guy who knows what he's doing," Omar later told his attorney, Glenn Bruder.
Omar is the only defendant to testify in the trial, which finished its third week at the Minneapolis federal courthouse. Omar, 21; Abdirahman Daud, 22, and Mohamed Farah, 22, were indicted last year on charges that include conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and to commit murder abroad. The latter charge carries a potential life sentence. Six others have pleaded guilty.
Omar first took the witness stand Thursday, and his testimony continued into Friday afternoon before both sides rested their cases. Closing arguments in the trial will start Tuesday and may extend into Wednesday.
Under cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter, Omar at times asked to have difficult-to-hear audiotapes replayed before confirming his role in the conversations. He also said he had trouble recalling some discussions because both he and the informant, Abdirahman Bashiir, had smoked marijuana together.
Omar's statements recorded by Bashiir in early 2015 included remarks that he would kill security officials at the Turkish border with Syria — "Once I'm there, it's do or die" — and musings over whether to bring a gun on an attempt first to cross into Mexico, "just in case they try to grab you."
The final tape Winter replayed Friday was of Omar saying that the group could one day share its route to Mexico with ISIL so it could send fighters into the U.S. to commit attacks.
