Wednesday, June 10, 2015
A Twin Cities man convicted of threatening FBI agents during a terrorism investigation has been allowed to go home after spending months in custody.
Mohamed Ali Omar was convicted in March for threatening two FBI agents and an interpreter in November as they investigated his brother, Guled Ali Omar, who has since been charged with trying to provide support to ISIS, The Associated Press reports.
Mohamed Omar has been in custody since November and was due to be sentenced Tuesday, but the judge postponed sentencing until September as he awaits a Supreme Court ruling relevant to Omar’s case. He did however approve Omar’s release until sentencing.
Omar was fitted with an ankle monitor before being released, according to FOX 9, which adds that the sentencing guidelines in his case call for a prison sentence of between four and 10 months – with Omar having already spent seven months in custody.
The decision by Chief U.S. District Judge Michael Davis Tuesday was greeted with relief among family members in attendance, with MPR reporting that allowing him home before sentencing represents a “partial victory” for the family.
“It’s been a long seven months,” his sister Hodan Omar said. “We’ve missed him so much. He’s coming home.”
According to MPR, evidence at the trial heard that Omar has a “verbal confrontation” with agents and the Somali interpreter, but his attorneys said he was responding after the interpreter called his sister an offensive Somali word.
Another of Omar’s brothers, Ahmed Ali Omar, left Minnesota in 2007 to join the terror group Al-Shabaab in Somalia, and is considered a fugitive. He was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2009.