Five people arrested in 2018 in an unsanitary encampment in the United States were sentenced to prison terms on Wednesday, including four to life imprisonment for “material support to terrorists” or kidnapping, the US Department of Justice announced.
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Five people, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, his partner Jany Leveille, an illegal Haitian, his two sisters, Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, and the latter’s husband, Lucas Morton, were found guilty in October by a federal court in New Mexico (southwest) for separate facts.
During the sentencing on Wednesday, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Lucas Morton were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of early release for “material support to terrorists” and “conspiracy to kill a government agent,” the court said. US Department of Justice in a statement.
The two sisters were sentenced to the same sentence for kidnapping leading to the death of Siraj Ibn Wahhaj’s 3-year-old son. Lucas Morton was also convicted of this charge.
As for Jany Leveille, who had pleaded guilty to “criminal conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists” and illegal possession of a weapon, she was sentenced to 15 years in prison, at the end of which she will be deported of the country, adds the ministry.
Jany Leveille had testified that the five defendants had prepared to kill federal officers or employees who entered their camp, according to judicial authorities.
In December 2017, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj illegally took his son from his mother in Alabama (southeast) and the group took him to New Mexico, where he died within two weeks. Believing the child “possessed by demons”, they “inflicted on him an exhausting regime of daily spiritual exorcisms”, the Ministry of Justice said in October.
After his death, “under the authority of Madame Leveille, they formed a community centered on the belief that the child would return as Jesus Christ to punish corrupt institutions”, and accordingly installed a fortified base and field shooting range where they trained, including with some of their children, according to the same source.
On August 3, 2018, authorities raided a sort of entrenched camp in a desert area of New Mexico, as part of an investigation into the child’s disappearance.
There they discovered the five adults and eleven minors emaciated, dirty and in rags. The body of the missing child was later found buried under trash.
The hideout contained a dozen guns and ammunition, but no water, food or electricity.
According to court documents, the little boy, disabled by a brain injury, was regularly prey to epileptic seizures.
