The man at the Maryland shooting range introduced himself as a native of Iraq.
He tried to be friendly with Nelash Das, telling the young man that he, too, was Muslim, by Das’s account. As weeks went by, they spent more and more time together, going to the shooting range, sharing meals and celebrating the holy holiday of Eid.
Eventually, federal officials say, they also plotted to kill a member of the U.S. military.
But when law enforcement intervened in suburban Washington Sept. 30 on the day of the planned attack, Das was arrested and held on charges of supporting terrorism while the man who had befriended him went free.
The purported Iraqi from the gun range, according to Das and federal court papers, was a paid confidential source working for the FBI.
Das told The Washington Post he believes he was unfairly set up and badgered into a scheme by the U.S. government. In a phone call Wednesday, Das said the informant manipulated his emotions, showed him videos sympathetic to the Islamic State and hounded him into taking part in a supposed terrorist plot targeting the military.
“I didn’t really want to do it,” said Das, 24. “He just came and put it in my head.”
A Washington Post reporter happened to be interviewing Das’s mother Wednesday at her home when she received a call from her imprisoned son. Das then agreed to speak with the reporter. He had an initial appearance in federal court on Monday and is set for another hearing Tuesday.
In the country’s ongoing fight against terrorism, it is not uncommon for law enforcement to use undercover informants they pay to befriend suspects who later are charged. But Das argues he is the victim of entrapment as the FBI unfairly targets Muslims in its counterterror efforts – investigations that he said ruin families and portray people like him as “monsters.”
“The danger posed by Mr. Das during this investigation was very real,” said Special Agent in Charge Gordon Johnson of the FBI’s Baltimore Division when authorities announced charges against Das. “He was committed to carrying out an attack against a military member.”
The FBI would not address the specifics of Das’s versions of events, saying the case is still under investigation. But in a statement, the agency said it investigates “activity which may constitute a federal crime or pose a threat to national security.” The agency uses a variety of techniques in investigations that are subject to vigorous oversight, the statement said.
Julie Stelzig, Das’s attorney with the Federal Public Defender, said her client plans to enter a plea of not guilty at a future hearing and denies the charges.
“It is much too early to draw any conclusions about Mr. Das or the allegations and we would request that the public reserve judgment while the legal process proceeds as it should,” Stelzig said.
Das, who went to high school in Florida, is a legal permanent resident of the United States and was admitted to the country in 1995 after moving as a young child from Bangladesh, according to his mother and to an affidavit filed by federal officials.
Das’s mother, Bijaya Das, wore dark sunglasses in her home where she had also drawn the curtains as she said she has spent the week since her son’s arrest crying.
She said her son made a mistake and that the confidential informant “messed up his head.” She insists he is not a terrorist, but rather a young man who helps her get groceries, picks up her medication and shoos flies out of the townhouse they share in Prince George’s County, Maryland, rather than swatting them dead.
“I know my son is a very good boy,” Bijaya Das said. “He has a very soft heart. He believes everybody.”
Das had been on the FBI’s radar for some time before he was introduced to the confidential source in May, according to a law enforcement official and the federal complaint. The FBI declined to say Thursday what information drew them to Das.
The federal complaint charging Das states that an investigation found he had posted social media messages dating to November 2015 that appeared to support the Islamic State, terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and violence against those who didn’t back his form of Islam.
In one Twitter message from September 2015, according to federal officials, he posted: “Sitting on twitter is not enough. I envy seeing brothers getting shahada n slaying kuffar while im at home not gettin any action.”
“Shahada,” according to the FBI in it court filing, refers to “dying as a martyr,” and “kuffar” translates to “disbelievers” or “infidels.”
Das acknowledged in the phone interview that he had posted on social media in past months referencing violence, but said he did it because he “felt like it was cool,” and did not post anything to help propagate Islamic State messages.
In May, Das met the FBI’s confidential source for the first time and believed the source to be a “like-minded” supporter of the Islamic State, according to federal court filings that did not say where the meeting occurred.
After the initial encounter at the gun range, Das said, the man who had approached him would randomly show up at his home. Bijaya Das said the man appeared at her pizza shop where Das worked. He would talk to Das about how U.S. soldiers indiscriminately kill children abroad and that killing American soldiers is justified in Islam, Das said.
The man also paid for Das’s time at a shooting range in Prince George’s County about 30 minutes away from his home and took him there about 10 times, according to Das.
The federal affidavit cites seven specific dates in the summer that investigators say Das was at the range and say that during the summer he spoke of wanting to acquire an AK-47 and travel abroad for the Islamic State, which Das denies.
A federal affidavit says Das told the source in July he “wanted to kill a particular military member who lived in Prince George’s County, Maryland,” whose identity and location Das had found a year earlier in a posting online by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS.
One week later, Das told the source he couldn’t find the listing, federal investigators assert, and asked whether any of the source’s Islamic State contacts could resend a list.
In later meetings with the source, Das said he was continuing to scour for military personnel targets and was ” ‘100%’ ” committed to an attack, the federal affidavit states.
The source, who said he could provide both of them with weapons, also told Das that an Islamic State contact in Iraq has passed along information that identified a military member and that the Islamic State would pay them $80,000 for the attack, the court files charge.
But Das said in the phone interview that he was never seriously seeking the list of U.S. military targets and was urged by the source to search for it.
Das said he would go to the shooting range for fun, and Bijaya Das said her son began going to the range after considering a job in criminal justice or as a security officer but never had guns at home.
In the weeks leading to the slated attack, federal officials said, the source took Das to buy ammunition and conduct surveillance on the supposed target’s address, which was a fake provided by the FBI.
On Sept. 30, the day of the planned attack, Das allegedly texted the source: “I’m ready.”
The confidential source picked up Das, and Das loaded ammunition into a weapon that, unknown to him, had been rendered inoperable, according to federal filings.
A short time later, at the address Das had been told belonged to a military member, Das got out of his vehicle, moved toward the trunk where the firearms had been placed and was approached by FBI agents who took him into custody after a short foot chase, according to federal filings.
Das said by phone that he was set up and that the source provided him with weapons and told him to load. And when it came time to launch the attack, Das said, he never intended to shoot anyone and that the confidential source told him he had only to knock on the military member’s door.
Das said he lost sleep in the days before the planned attack and told the FBI’s source that the plot “doesn’t feel right.” But the source kept insisting such targets “deserve it,” Das said by phone. The source also said he would do the driving and the shooting, according to Das.
“He just kept harassing me,” Das said.
Das said he relented because he was being emotionally manipulated and was told he’d receive $40,000 for helping with the attack. And when the “big bad ISIS guy,” as Das described the FBI source, was putting on the pressure, Das said he felt he couldn’t say no.
Das said that despite his misgivings, he never turned the man over to law enforcement because it didn’t feel right to turn in a fellow Muslim.
The government is trying to peg him as a person who doesn’t like people of other faiths, as Das sees it. But, Das said, he has friends who are soldiers, has dated women who are not Muslim and goes to bars “just like everyone else.”
“I’m just a kid smoking weed in my basement and playing video games,” Das said.
Samsul Islam, the manager of the pizza shop owned by Das’s mother, says that Das is well-liked and customers sometimes ask for him by name. Islam said Das was a good, normal young man until the mysterious man came into his life four months ago.
“He’s a good guy,” said Islam, who has known Das for about three years. “He takes care of customers, very nice.”
Bijaya Das said the man spending time with her son portrayed himself as a friend. Now she blames him for her son’s arrest.
“We love this country,” she said. “We hate terrorism.”
(c) 2016, The Washington Post ยท Lynh Bui
