AN ALGERIAN born Irishman is set to plead guilty to charges of supporting terrorism, having initially pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Ali Charaf Damache was extradited to the US last year having been accused of recruiting an American woman known as “Jihad Jane” in 2009.
While none of the plans US prosecutors accused him of resulted in attacks, authorities said he was in direct contact with Islamist militants in Pakistan.
The 53-year-old also recruited two American women to help him.
One was a suburban Philadelphia woman named Colleen LaRose, who called herself “Jihad Jane” online.
LaRose pleaded guilty in 2011 to participating in a failed plot with Damache to kill Swedish artist Lars Vilks, who had offended some Muslims by depicting the head of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad on a dog.
In 2014, a US judge sentenced LaRose to 10 years in prison.
The other US woman who joined Damache in Ireland, Jamie Pauline Ramirez of Leadville, Colorado, served an eight-year sentence on a terrorism charge.–Reuters
Damache, who pleaded not guilty last year to a US charge of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, was jailed in Ireland in 2010, and successfully fought extradition to the United States. After his release in Ireland, he travelled to Spain, where he was detained in 2015 and Spanish authorities agreed to US requests to extradite him.
He is currently jailed in Philadelphia while awaiting trial.
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