Ninth Circuit grants new trial to Arizona man convicted of supporting Islamic State

The majority found the government provided no evidence that Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem planned to join the terrorist organization when he gave weapons and ammo to two terrorists in 2015.PHOENIX (CN) — The Ninth Circuit on Friday ordered the retrial of a Phoenix man who armed terrorists in a 2015 attack in Texas, doubting his intention to act on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.Reversing just one of five counts of Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem’s 2016 conviction, two appellate judges agreed that the government provided no evidence he actually intended to provide services to the terrorist group.“At most, the evidence demonstrated that Kareem was independently inspired by ISIS’s ideology and goals,” U.S. Circuit Judge Salvador Mendoza Jr. wrote with the backing of U.S. Circuit Judge Roopali Desai, a fellow Joe Biden appointee.“But acts rooted in ideological sympathy toward an organization, standing alone, do not establish that a defendant knowingly agreed to provide material support to that organization or that he intended for a co-conspirator to operate under the organization’s direction or control,” Mendoza added in the 33-page opinion.Dissenting, U.S. Circuit Judge Daniel P. Collins found no material difference between acting in direct service to a group and acting in alignment with its core mission.“The majority is wrong in contending that an individual provides a ‘service’ to a foreign terrorist organization only when he undertakes “coordinated actions that integrate [him] into [the] organization’s operations,” the Donald Trump appointee countered.Roommates Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi drove from their Phoenix home to Garland, Texas, in May 2015 to shoot and kill attendees of a “Draw Muhammad” cartoon contest organized by a right-wing extremist group. In a tweet posted just before the shooting, Simpson pledged himself to the Islamic State group. An undercover police officer shot and killed both after they opened fire on a security guard, hitting him just once in the leg.Their third roommate, Kareem, supplied the shooters with three rifles, three handguns and 1,500 rounds of ammunition. Though not part of the conviction, the government accused Kareem of training the shooters as well.In 2016, a federal judge gave Kareem 30 years in prison for transporting firearms across state lines, making false statements to the FBI, illegal possession of a firearm and conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.On appeal, the panel said Kareem must be acquitted and retried on the final count.The government showed evidence at trial that Kareem began staying with Simpson and Soofi in 2014, and the three of them consumed and discussed media associated with Islamic extremism, including IS propaganda videos. A former roommate testified that Kareem declared himself “part of ISIS.” To prove the final count, prosecutors emphasized Kareem’s closeness with Simpson and Soofi, his exposure to propaganda and Simpson’s public pledge to IS.The Ninth Circuit found that evidence insufficient.“Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, there is no evidence showing that Kareem intended to join a scheme wherein he or his co-conspirators would receive directions from, or be in coordination with, ISIS personnel,” Mendoza wrote. “Simpson’s belated pledge of loyalty to ISIS does not alter our conclusion.”Simpson’s pledge displays only his personal devotion to IS, not any agreement between the group and himself, the panel said. If it did display the latter, no evidence was presented that Kareem heard or knew of Simpson’s pledge.The majority found whether Kareem was inspired by IS and related propaganda to be irrelevant to Kareem’s state of mind because no agreement for Kareem to serve as “personnel” of the group was ever established.“However heinous Kareem’s conduct may be, the government needed to show more than what it did here,” Mendoza wrote.In his dissent, Collins said the government didn’t need to show communication between Kareem and IS to prove that Kareem acted on “ISIS’s public call for its supporters to conduct terrorist attacks in the United States.”At trial, Kareem’s defense attorney conceded that Simpson and Soofi conspired to provide services to IS, contesting only whether he shared their intent. Now, he argues the government never proved that intent.“Kareem’s current narrow reading of § 2339B is thus contrary to the position he affirmatively took during the trial,” Collins wrote.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads