Proud al-Qaida member refuses to attend his Brooklyn federal sentencing

February 16, 2018 By Paul Frangipane Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Ibrahim Adnan Harun Hausa was sentenced to life in prison for ambushing service members in Afghanistan and plotting to blow up a U.S. Embassy in Nigeria. Eagle file photo by Rob Abruzzese

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A Brooklyn judge sentenced a senior al-Qaida member responsible for a 2003 attack in Afghanistan that killed two U.S. service members to life in prison on Friday while the terrorist refused to come to court.

“This is not my court, that is not my judge,” Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun told U.S. marshals Friday morning, according to Judge Brian Cogan. Still, the self-proclaimed “warrior” of jihad’s Metropolitan Correctional Center cell was presented over video to the courtroom.

Before the judge sentenced him, he asked if the operative had anything to say.

“Do you want to speak?” a representative from the defense team could be heard asking Harun through video feed. After a second she looked back to the camera.

“It appears he does not have anything to say,” she deadpanned.

Harun, commonly referred to as Spin Ghul, frequently requested he be tried in military court as a soldier during his prosecution, boycotting the federal court since day one, Cogan said.

The judge was quick to call him a narcissist living in his own world.

“He is a person of murderous zeal. He is totally self-absorbed,” Cogan said. “He has one gear and that is to kill Americans.”

Harun, 47, was convicted in March 2017 for his involvement in the murders of Private First Class Jerod Dennis, 19, and Airman First Class Raymond Losano, 24, during an ambush in Afghanistan. After the two-week trial, a jury also found him guilty of plotting to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria.

It was pointed out in court that Harun claims he is from Niger, but the country’s government denied he was a citizen.

The jihadist fired machinegun rounds and threw grenades, wounding several other American soldiers with his fellow al-Qaida members during the April 25, 2003 attack. His fingerprints were found on a Quran and a journal at the scene that described the attacks.

Then in the summer of 2003, he traveled to Nigeria to plan the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria before law enforcement caught on. He was eventually arrested in early 2005 by Libyan authorities and held in custody until June 2011 to get arrested immediately again by Italian authorities. He was extradited to the U.S. to face trial the next year on conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, conspiracy to bomb a government facility and other terror-related charges.

Dennis’ brother and two soldiers serving during the ambush addressed the court at sentencing, detailing their lives since the attack. Sgt. Brian Severino sobbed as he told Cogan he failed his men and their families that day.