Attorneys for two of the three Minneapolis men convicted last month of trying to join the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have asked the judge in the case to order the same risk assessment of their clients that those who pleaded guilty received as part of the "terrorism disengagement and deradicalization program" introduced earlier this year.
In March, Judge Michael Davis introduced the program, the first in the country, and six defendants who had pleaded guilty in the case have since been evaluated. They have undergone studies aimed at recommending intervention needs for "deradicalization of defendants involved in terrorism cases."
Now attorneys for Abdirahman Daud, 22, and Guled Omar, 21, have asked Davis to direct the U.S. Probation Office to conduct a study and contract with Daniel Koehler, a German expert on radicalization, to complete a presentence report.
Davis introduced the program out of a desire for "more information than is otherwise available" to determine appropriate sentencings. Attorneys Bruce Nestor and Glenn Bruder echo that interest in their respective orders.
An attorney for the third defendant convicted at trial, Mohamed Farah, did not file a similar motion and did not immediately respond to messages left for comment. Farah's younger brother, Adnan Farah, pleaded guilty a month before trial and underwent an evaluation.
The motions filed by Nestor and Bruder closely follow orders from Davis for other defendants in the case, specifically outlining 10 factors to be included in the report.
Those factors include identifying and describing "case-specific driving factors of radicalization" and interviews with the defendant, family and friends. The written reports, prepared by Koehler, also seek to identify the level of risk of reoffending and a "stage of radicalization" for each defendant.
Koehler has also been contracted to give a prognosis for possible chances of successful intervention and to provide a program tailored to individual defendants' circumstances.
