by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
SDNY EXCLUSIVE, Jan 15– A man who left New Jersey to try to join Al Shabaab, inspired or triggered by the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel and its aftermath, argued to be released on bail on December 29 in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Magistrates Court.
Inner City Press was there, the only media in the SDNY Mag court, and live tweeted, thread:
KARREM NASR, a US citizen, was taken into custody in Nairobi, Kenya on Dec 14, 2023 and was transported to the US yesterday. Nasr is led in by US Marshals.
Judge: These are terrorism charges... You chose jihad over studying. I order you detained.
A preliminary hearing was set for January 12.
But the day before, on January 11, 2024, Nasr's case was indicted and assigned to District Judge Analisa Torres.
On April 24, the US Attorney's Office opposed Nasr's bid for bail, now quoting him tweeting against "a post announcing the birth of a gay couple's son via surrogate" by stating, "and this is why we fly jets into skyscrapers."
On May 20, the US Attorney's Office wrote to Judge Torres nominated Classified Information Security Officer and alternates.
On June 7, in support of a pending application to get Nasr freed from detention, his lawyer wrote in citing a decision by EDNY District Judge Natasha C. Merle freeing Halima Salman who was in ISIS-held territory in Syria - she allegedly married an ISIS fighter, learned to use an AK-47 and lied to the FBI. But she was ordered released.
On August 1 the US Attorney's Office submitted a joint status letter, in which they say that "preliminary discussions about a pretrial resolution are ongoing." The defense says its retained expert is preparing a mitigation letter it expects to submit by the end of August. Publicly?
On November 4 the Federal Defenders wrote in about their mitigation submission and a possible disposition; on November 5 Judge Torres pushed back the trial date from January to May 12, 2025 and asked for a disposition update by December 16.
On January 7, 2025 Judge Torres set a change of plea for January 27 at 4 pm.
The case is USA v. Nasr, 1:24-cr-19 (Torres)
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