An Ohio native accused of providing financial support to an al Qaeda leader is asking to be released on bail before his trial — so he can be placed under home confinement in Gwinnett County.
Asif Ahmed Salim, 35, was charged last November in a federal indictment that accuses him and three others of raising money through fraudulent credit card charges and sending the funds to Anwar al-Awlaki, whom the Department of Justice referred to as "a key leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula." The scheme took place over about seven years beginning in 2005, the Associated Press previously reported.
al-Awlaki was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in 2011.
Salim was already denied bail earlier this year, but his attorney, Linda Moreno, filed a new motion Saturday in U.S. District Court in Toledo, Ohio, calling him “neither a risk of flight nor a danger to the community.”
The filing echoes the requests of January’s failed bail motion — that he be released to his wife’s family’s home in Duluth, which would also be put up to ensure his appearance in court — but adds a third “custodian” that would be responsible for his supervision.
That custodian is Gwinnett County Assistant District Attorney Sabrina Nizam, his sister-in-law.
“Ms. Nizam has a personal abiding self-interest in making sure Mr. Salim complies with all conditions of release this Court would set, given that her family home, built by her parents, is at stake,” the filing said. “She will testify before this Honorable Court about her ability, and that of her mother and sister, to faithfully monitor and control as humanly possible, Mr. Salim’s compliance with conditions of release.”
Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter said Nizam told him about the situation late last year. He said he has no opinion about whether her brother-in-law should be released. But he said he’s known Nizam since she interned in his office in high school, college and law school.
“Of the top 10 people in the universe that I trust, she’s on that list,” Porter said.
Porter said he also knows her family, but not her brother-in-law, and doesn’t know if the allegations against him are true. But he said he trusts the judicial system and said Salim is innocent until prove guilty.
“Even if (the allegations are) proven to be true, I don’t think it reflects on Sabrina,” Porter said. “It doesn’t affect her job or my perception of her loyalty.”
Messages left with a spokesperson for U.S. District Court in Toledo were not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.
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