He’s accused of abandoning his life and household in Brooklyn to struggle and prepare snipers for ISIS — and now a Brooklyn jury will determine his destiny.
Ruslan Asainov, 46, is ready to go on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court docket this week for conspiring to supply materials help for terrorists. Prosecutors say he pulled up roots within the U.S. and made his option to Syria to change into a “warrior, sniper and sniper coach” for the jihadi group.
Court docket filings present that prosecutors plan to introduce communications between Asainov and different members of the terrorist group — together with former Brooklyn resident Mirsad Kandic, a high-ranking ISIS propagandist and recruiter who was discovered responsible of terrorism prices by a federal jury final yr.
Kandic and Asainov arrived in Turkey on the identical time and traveled to Syria to hitch ISIS collectively. In a single correspondence seized by authorities, Kandic may be heard praising Asainov as “the most effective,”.
“He’s emir (i.e., boss or chief) of muascar (i.e., coaching camp) for a very long time, of snipers, for a number of years now. He is an efficient brother,” Kandic mentioned in 2017, based on courtroom paperwork filed in December.
Prosecutors will even possible name a confidential informant and knowledgeable witnesses on ISIS and firearms.
Asainov, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was born in Kazakhstan and lived in Brooklyn between 1998 and 2013. He married within the U.S. and had a toddler and transformed to Islam in 2009, prosecutors mentioned.
His pursuits turned to violent extremism and ISIS, and in 2013 he booked a one-way ticket to Turkey through Switzerland after which made his option to Syria, prosecutors mentioned.
Whereas there, prosecutors allege, he rose by the ranks and have become proficient with an M-16 assault rifle geared up with evening imaginative and prescient and a scope. He fought in opposition to the Syrian regime in Taqba and different areas of the nation and have become a sniper teacher, coaching different potential terrorist sharpshooters for nearly three years.
Prosecutors say he pledged allegiance to ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in a U.S. Special Forces strike in 2019. He burned his U.S. passport and was given an Islamic State identification quantity, authorities cost.
Regardless that he was nonetheless married in Brooklyn, he took one other spouse in Taqba and had kids along with her, the feds say. Asainov was detained in Syria and introduced again to the U.S. in 2019 to face federal prices.
Asainov made incriminating statements to authorities after his seize and earlier than his federal courtroom arraignment, based on courtroom filings.
In 2020, he was caught with a makeshift ISIS flag in his cell on the now-shuttered Metropolitan Correctional Middle in Manhattan, the feds say.
The jury within the case will probably be nameless. Opening statements are anticipated to happen Monday.
Asainov’s lawyer didn’t return a name looking for remark forward of the trial.
If convicted, Asainov may face life in jail.
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