Jury seated in Taos compound kidnapping, terrorism trial

Four people on trial in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque devised a system of bizarre religious beliefs that prompted them to kidnap a severely ill 3-year-old boy and expose him to dangerous rituals that led to his death in late 2017, a federal prosecutor told jurors Tuesday.

Those beliefs led the group to remove the boy from the care of his mother in Georgia and move him to a remote site north of Taos where he was deprived of medication and subjected to a harrowing daily rituals, Assistant U.S. Attorney George Kraehe said in opening statements.

The same beliefs led the group to build a compound near the Colorado border as a base for a planned violent attack against military, law enforcement and financial institutions, prosecutors allege.

“They deprived a mother of the only child she would ever have, and they deprived a little boy of his life,” Kraehe told jurors. The defendants “play at being prophets who set themselves apart from the world and above it.”

Opening statements began Tuesday afternoon in the kidnapping and terrorism trial of Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 45, his sisters Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhanah Wahhaj, both 40, and Subhanah’s husband, Lucas Morton, 45.

They began after a jury of seven men and five women was seated before U.S. Chief District Judge William P. Johnson.

But attorneys for two people on trial told jurors the government’s allegations of terrorism are “speculative” and based on a series of supernatural events that never occurred.

Donald Kochersberger, an attorney for Hurah Mahhaj, said in opening statements that the government’s allegations are based on the writings of a woman who predicted the deceased boy would be resurrected as a messiah and lead believers into a new era.

The boy “was going to come back to life as the second coming of Jesus Christ” leading to events the government labels a terrorist conspiracy, Kochersberger told jurors.

That prediction was among “hypothetical” events predicted in the writings of Jany Lavielle, one of five adults arrested at the Taos compound in 2018.

“Is attacking the government really what they were planning to do, or was it just Jany’s fantasy?” Kochersberger asked jurors in opening statements. “Thinking about things like this is not a crime.”

The four were indicted by a federal grand jury in March 2019 on a variety of federal charges, including providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to murder an officer or employee of the United States, and other conspiracy charges.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, the boy’s father, was not charged with kidnapping because federal law prohibits a parent from being charged with kidnapping. The other three are charged with kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping.

Lavielle, a 40-year-old Haitian national, pleaded guilty in February to a federal firearms charge and one conspiracy charge and faces up to 15 years in prison. Her sentencing has not been scheduled.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, who is representing himself, began his brief opening statements by reciting a prayer in Arabic. He told jurors he has been in the “security field” for 25 years. He also played a short video for jurors that showed adults and children outside a mosque.

“We are a close-knit family and we do most things together, as you can see,” apparently referring to the video.

Justine Fox-Young, an attorney for Subhanah Wahhaj, said the government’s allegation of kidnapping is based on the fact that Subhannah travelled with her husband to New Mexico with her family but had no control over the actions of her brother and husband.

“She was essentially powerless to leave,” Fox-Young told jurors. Because of her passive personality, “she ended up struggling and stuck” in a remote location in Taos County.

Subhanah had four children of her own to care for and did her best to cook and clean for her family. “She cared for her young children basically the best she could,” Fox-Young said.

Prosecutors allege that the boy, Abdul Ghani Wahhaj, died after a four-hour ritual performed by his father in a trailer at the Taos compound.

The case captured the nation’s attention in August 2018 when law enforcement officers raided the group’s ramshackle compound and began searching for the boy reported missing by his mother.

Officers found a squalid compound stocked with guns and ammunition, a firing range and an underground bunker where the boy’s remains were found.

Jurors also heard from Hakima Ramzi, the mother of Abdul Ghani Wahhaj, who was the first witness to testify for the government Tuesday.

Ramzi told jurors that she was the sole caregiver for her son until November 2017, when Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, now her ex-husband, took the boy while she was taking a shower.

Ramzi said that the last time she saw her son alive was after she contacted police and child welfare officials to meet her at her estranged husband’s house. She pleaded to be able to take the boy with her, but Siraj Wahhaj refused. He brought Abdul Ghani outside to show her, but wouldn’t let her hold him, she testified. Then he took him back inside.

Afterward, she testified, Siraj told her, “because you involved the police, you’ll see what happens.”

She learned New Mexico authorities had found her son’s body on Aug. 6, 2018, on what would have been his fourth birthday.

“I didn’t believe it, that I’m not going to see him again,” Ramzi testified in tears. “He was my only child. He (Siraj) knows how I suffer. I lost two times. I had miscarriages. I didn’t have any chance to be a mother, then God blessed me with Abdul Ghani.”

“They know, they know,” Ramzi said, raising her voice and pointing at the defense table where her now ex-husband, his two sisters, and Sirag Wahhaj's brother-in-law sat.