An Ellicott City teenager who was due to be part of the Hopkins class of 2015 pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges in a Philadelphia federal court on Monday.
Mohammed Massan Khalid, who at 18 is one of the youngest people in the country to be charged with aiding a terrorist, walked into the courtroom in a drab one piece jumpsuit with his hands shackled behind his back and his shoulders slumped. Other than his denial of the charges, he said little and lowered his head throughout much of the proceeding.
The Pakistani citizen was arrested in July for allegedly soliciting aid and support in 2008 or 2009 for Colleen R. LaRose, a convicted terrorist from the Philadelphia suburbs who went by the online moniker "Jihad Jane."
"The government's charges are extremely serious. It doesn't get much more serious than this," Jeffrey M. Lindy, Khalid's lawyer, said. "But it's based on Internet posts and no-one has correctly or appropriately analyzed these messages."
Lindy went on to point out that no-one listed in the indictment had actually met each other or held a meeting in person.
"These things occurred in cyberspace and cyberspace is very, very confusing," he said.
The charge that Khalid faces is conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists. He allegedly sent LaRose a package of documents when she was in Europe, plotting to kill a Swedish cartoonist who had angered the extremist Muslim community by drawing a caricature of the prophet Mohammed as a dog.
If convicted, he could face up to 15 years in prison.
Liddy described the Khalid family as "very, very sweet" and hard working.
"This is a story as old as America," Liddy said. "His father brought [his family] from Pakistan, found a nice place for them to live and a good public high school for them to go to. He worked menial jobs… like selling dry goods and working for various fast food delivery companies.
"It's the American dream turned into a nightmare."
Khalid was indicted along with Ali Charaf Darnache, a 46-year-old Algerian who is not yet in custody. The indictment charges that Khalid worked with other conspirators to create a "violent jihad organization" with people in the US and Europe, according to The Baltimore Sun.
It remains unclear as to how he first connected with LaRose. The first contact came from an email which prosecutors say LaRose forwarded to Khalid on July 8th, 2009, asking for money. Khalid allegedly posted on an online forum on that same day asking for money on her behalf.
Khalid, the second child in a family of four has been described by a spokesperson for the Howard County school system as "extremely strong" academically and was to be on financial aid at Hopkins.
Liddy maintains that Khalid is not a terrorist and that "he wouldn't know a terrorist if he ran over one in a car."
A U.S. District Court judge ordered Khalid detained until his trial, scheduled for Dec. 13, and set a hearing date of Nov. 16 to hear arguments from Lindy about moving the suspect from an adult federal holding facility to some place less restrictive.
