Families of alleged ISIS honeymooners stunned

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CBS:

Aug 11, 2015

 

JACKSON, Mississippi - The would-be blushing bride and groom sat in a Mississippi courtroom Tuesday, side-by-side, facing charges that they tried to join the world's most notorious terrorist organization.

 

Criminal charges filed Saturday say Jaelyn Delshaun Young, 20, and Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla, 22, were arrested that morning at a regional airport near Columbus, Mississippi, allegedly on their way to join jihad.

 

Officials say the couple were trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS.) And they claim it was the 19-year-old Young who was the mastermind behind the plot to do so, which involved getting married and pretending to be on a honeymoon to get there, reports CBS affiliate WJTV in Jackson.

 

Both are officially charged with attempting and conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group. An affidavit by an FBI agent says both confessed their plans after their arrest.

 

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Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla at left, and Jaelyn Delshaun Young, in undated photos WJTV

 

 

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No bail for couple accused of trying to join Islamic State
August 11, 2015
Associated Press

OXFORD, Miss. (AP) — A young Mississippi couple who are charged with attempting to join the Islamic State were ordered held without bail Tuesday, pending federal grand jury action on the charges. Twenty-year-old Jaelyn Delshaun Young and 22-year-old Muhammad "Mo" Dakhlalla, who were arrested at a Mississippi airport just before boarding a flight with tickets bound for Istanbul, went before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander in Oxford on Tuesday.

 

Alexander denied bail, saying that even though the pair have never been in trouble with the law and have relatives willing to oversee their home confinement, she believed their desire to commit terrorism is "probably still there. "During the two-day hearing, prosecutors had urged Alexander to deny bail, citing statements Young and Dakhlalla made to undercover agents and handwritten farewell letters they left for their families saying they would never return.

 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner likened them to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying that like him, they could commit violence with knives, vehicles or homemade weapons. "They don't need a gun to do harm," Joyner said. "They don't need military training to do harm. What they need is a violent, extremist ideology, and that's exactly what they have espoused."

 

Alexander agreed that their apparent methodical planning overcame a recommendation by federal court personnel to allow pretrial release.

 

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Trial set for couple accused of trying to join Islamic State

Jeff Amy | AP

September 2 2015

 

JACKSON, Miss. — A young Mississippi couple accused of attempting to join the Islamic State are scheduled for trial Oct. 26 after a grand jury indicted them on charges that they tried to aid the terrorist organization. U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allan Alexander set the trial date Tuesday following the Aug. 26 indictment of 20-year-old Jaelyn Delshaun Young and 22-year-old Muhammad “Mo” Dakhlalla.

 

Each is charged with one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, as well as one count of attempting to provide material support, facing up to 20 years in prison, as well as lifetime probation.

 

Court records show both waived a court appearance on the indictment and pleaded not guilty. Their lawyers did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment late Tuesday. In a letter filed Tuesday mainly requesting copies of evidence, Dakhlalla’s attorney Greg Park also requested the “opportunity to possibly engage in plea negotiations at the appropriate time.”

 

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