Houston al Qaeda trainee pleads guilty

Houston Chronicle:

Former Houston resident Daniel Joseph Maldonado pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in an al-Qaida training camp in East Africa, federal prosecutors said.

Maldonado, 28, was the first American charged in connection with an attempt to establish an extremist Islamic state in Somalia. He also used the name Daniel Aljughaifi, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Maldonado, who was charged with receiving training from a foreign terrorist organization, agreed to plead guilty to the government's criminal complaint in exchange for an agreement that prosecutors would not file any other charges, Assistant U.S. Attorney Abe Martinez said.

Details of the agreement were not available because it is sealed. By accepting the deal, Maldonado avoids possible indictment by a grand jury considering the case.

Federal officials would not say whether Maldonado has provided information that will lead to other terrorism arrests. He is scheduled to be sentenced on June 29, when he could be sent to prison for as long as 10 years and fined $250,000.

"For an American to travel overseas to train as a violent jihadist alongside al-Qaida elements who are focused upon threatening the security of our nation, is decidedly disturbing and definitely illegal," U.S. Attorney Don DeGabrielle said in a prepared statement. "Maldonado's conviction should serve as a strong warning to any American who considers joining forces with terrorist groups here or abroad."

Maldonado, a Muslim convert and blogger under the names Daniel Aljughaifi and Abu Mohammed, came to Houston from Boston for a short time in 2005 to work for the Houston-based IslamicNetwork.com, a Web site frequented by terrorism suspects.

A few months later, he and his wife, Tamekia, moved to Egypt with their two children. His wife, who bore the couple's third child in Egypt, died overseas of malaria after the family moved to Somalia.

While in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, Maldonado was outfitted with an AK-47 assault rifle, combat uniforms and boots, authorities said.

He acknowledged to federal authorities that — at training camps in Kismaayo and Jilib, southern Somali towns where al-Qaida members allegedly were present — he received firearms and explosives training to prepare to fight with the Islamic Courts Union.

The ICU and al-Qaida worked together to train fighters to take over the country, federal officials said.

While fleeing Somalia in January, Maldonado was captured by Kenyan soldiers, who turned him over to American FBI agents.

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Maldonado would have been a prize recruit for al Qaeda because of his "clean skin" ability to infiltrate back into the US. In earlier reports he indicated that many in Somalia did not trust him because he was not black, but he eventually gained their trust and received the training. His deceased wife was an American black. The guilty plea should not be too surprising since he had earlier admitted to most of the elements of the crime.