MD Teen Indicted For Helping ‘Jihad Jane' in Terror Plot

Juvenile has been held since July 6

An 18-year-old Maryland teen has been indicted on charges he helped the terror suspect dubbed "Jihad Jane" with her plot to kill a Swedish artist.

Federal authorities say they indicted Mohammad Hassan Khalid, a legal immigrant from Pakistan and former high school honors student.

Khalid has been the rare juvenile in federal custody since his July 6 arrest, when he was 17, at his family's Ellicott City home.

The indictment charges that he helped recruit women with passports to further the plot of Colleen LaRose of Pennsylvania and others. He faces up to 15 years, and could be deported, if convicted.

The teen's lawyer, Jeffrey M. Lindy, did not immediately return a call for comment.

Also named in the indictment released Thursday is an Algerian who lived in Ireland and married another suspect in the case.

Khalid met LaRose in an online chat room in 2009, when he was 15, according to the indictment and a person close to his family.

He allegedly solicited money for her online and circulated a questionnaire to at least one woman asking about ``her beliefs and intentions with regard to jihad,'' and if she had a European passport, according to the indictments.

In soliciting funds, he pledged to forward money to LaRose, for her to pass on to the jihadists, authorities say.

``I know the sister and by Allah, all money will be transferred to her. The sister will then transfer the money to the brother via a method that I will not disclose,'' he wrote in July 2009, according to the LaRose indictment.

LaRose, 48, of Pennsburg, had dubbed herself Jihad Jane in a YouTube video that had caught the attention of the FBI by 2009.      

She faces a possible life term after pleading guilty to four federal charges, including conspiracy to support terrorists and lying to the FBI. She has not yet been sentenced.
 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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