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Friday, April 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Terror Suspect|Nabbed in New Jersey

NEWARK (CN) - A New Jersey man was charged Thursday with conspiring to provide material support to ISIL, a terrorist organization.

Samuel Rahamin Topaz, 21, of Fort Lee, was arrested at his home Wednesday and appeared Thursday in Federal Court.

In an affidavit attached to the criminal complaint, an FBI agent says Topaz conspired with three others to aid ISIL. One of them was arrested in June 13 in New York City on terrorism charges; one left the United States on May 5, allegedly to join ISIL; and one is still in New Jersey, the Department of Justice said in a statement Thursday.

Prosecutors said co-conspirator 2, who was arrested June 13, sent Topaz a message: "if u can take a loan out for 5k or even 2.5k then ur [sic] good, they take US dollars in dawla so u can eat and buy stuff, and they provide u with housing when u reach the land of Islam."

Dawla is Arabic for dynasty, or state.

ISIL, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, claims to be a state, and does control territory in Syria and Iraq, though it is not recognized as a state by any nation.

In a drive to the airport for the flight to Jordan on which co-conspirator 1 allegedly left to join ISIL, the FBI recorded the men saying that their time with ISIL would be "like a holiday."

The FBI agent says in the affidavit that Topaz told an informant that ISIL "was not bad because they are protecting what they believe in and that news in the United States was corrupted."

In a May 4 message to conspirator 2, the FBI agent says, Topaz wrote: "An bro I'm not sure how much longer I can take not being in the dawla honestly, everything is so accessible and unchangeable and excessive in America that I feel any much longer I'm over here I must just start fasting to get much closer to God."

Conspirator 2 replied, inter alia: "...ur gonna enter the land of no music, and no Preverts [sic] taking girls out to violate them, no intoxication, no Filth, period! Allahu akbar!" according to the FBI affidavit.

If convicted, Topaz can be sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $250,000.

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