A Kenyan man was convicted on Monday of organizing a 9/11-style attack against a US skyscraper on behalf of the terrorist group al-Shabab.
According to court records, a federal jury in Manhattan found Cholo Abdi Abdullah guilty of all six counts of planning to hijack an airplane and ram it into a structure.
He is scheduled to be sentenced next March and faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in jail.
Abdullah represented himself in the trial, which began last week. He declined to make an opening remark and did not actively participate in questioning witnesses.
In court papers filed before of the trial, prosecutors stated that Abdullah intended to “merely sit passively during the trial, not oppose the prosecution, and whatever the outcome, he would accept it because he does not believe that this is a legitimate system.”
Lawyers designated to represent Abdullah in his self-defense did not respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.
Federal prosecutors, who rested their case on Thursday, claimed Abdullah planned the attack for four years, undergoing extensive explosives training as well as secret operations to prevent detection.
He then relocated to the Philippines in 2017 to begin training as a commercial pilot.
Abdullah had almost completed his two-year pilot school when he was arrested in 2019 on local charges.
The following year, he was transferred to US law enforcement, where he was charged with terrorism-related crimes.
According to prosecutors, Abdullah allegedly looked up how to break into a cockpit door and information “about the tallest building in a major U.S. city” before being apprehended.
In 2008, the State Department designated al-Shabab, which means “the youth” in Arabic, as a foreign terrorist organization. The militant group is an al-Qaida offshoot fighting to build a Shariah-compliant Islamic state in Somalia.