What the indictment does show is how far a prison telephone can be alleged to reach.
A suspected Iran-backed plot against RAF Fairford, the British airbase used by American forces, was allegedly coordinated in part from a New York prison, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday and reported by the Associated Press. The accused, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national, is said to have used monitored calls with his mother and sister to pass messages to associates outside custody.
Prosecutors allege that al-Saadi, held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since his arrest in the spring, used the word “work” as a code for terrorist activity. In a July 30 conversation he asked his sister what was being done about “all our old work”, seeking to know whether planned activity had been abandoned or merely suspended; she allegedly assured him that “it isn’t cancelled”. In a September 24 call he asked about an associate, Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, and told his family to “give him money so we can do it”, according to the indictment.
Two alleged associates, Iranian national Mohsen Mohajeri and Iraqi national Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, have also been charged. Neither is in American custody. Prosecutors accuse the three of working with Iran-backed operatives to plan nearly 20 attacks against Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, and say al-Saadi was a commander of Kata’ib Hizballah, which Washington has designated a foreign terrorist organisation. The indictment also describes alleged attacks in London in mid-April, including the firebombing of a Jewish charity and an attack on a synagogue, which al-Hassani allegedly urged an operative to “light it up like a Christmas tree”.
The Fairford allegations first surfaced publicly on September 27, when three suspicious vans were seen heading towards the base, about 160 kilometres west of London. Several men were detained on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences; seven arrested in connection with the incident were initially released on bail, and two were later rearrested on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service and charged under Britain’s National Security Act. Tehran denied involvement after British authorities linked the incident to Iran. The United States subsequently withdrew its bombers from the base and returned them home.
Manhattan US attorney Jamie McDonald said the defendants had helped orchestrate a campaign of terror on behalf of Iran-affiliated organisations, adding that the threat to America and its allies “is not hypothetical”. Attorney General Todd Blanche warned that anyone planning a plot on a base housing American service members would be prosecuted. Al-Saadi has pleaded not guilty to allegations that he plotted at least 18 attacks across Europe in retaliation for the US and Israeli war with Iran, and described himself during proceedings as a “prisoner of war”. He has been denied bail.
The case has also become a dispute over his access to his family. The FBI monitored and recorded his calls, and prosecutors sought to limit him to one hourlong call a month, arguing that coded expressions might be in use. Much remains unconfirmed: the charges are allegations, Mohajeri and al-Hassani have not appeared in an American court, and no trial has tested the prosecution’s reading of the calls. What the indictment does show is how far a prison telephone can be alleged to reach.
