A Bronx man with a penchant for beheading videos was arrested Tuesday morning on federal terrorism-related charges, officials said.
Sajmir Alimehmeti, 22, is charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS and making a false statement in an application for applying for a U.S. passport. He was ordered held without bail.
Investigators found an ISIS flag in his apartment when they arrested him Tuesday morning and a passport he’d claimed he’d lost. It was wrapped in $2,400 in cash, prosecutors said.
Alimehmeti showed “a clear intention to support a terrorist organization that is hell-bent on murder and mayhem,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
Court papers say Alimehmeti, who also used the name Andul Qawii, kept ISIS beheading videos on his laptop, and would play them for guests or to get “motivated” while working out.
Alimehmeti had been trying to join ISIS since at least the fall of 2014, when he was blocked from entering the United Kingdom, court papers say.
Officials at Manchester Airport denied him entry after they found “camouflage pants and shirts, as well as nunchucks, in Alihmemeti’s luggage,” the complaint says.
The determined jihadist wannabe tried unsuccessfully to get into the U.K. again two months later through Heathrow Airport. Authorities seized his cellphone and laptop, which were loaded with pictures of ISIS flags, videos of bombings and propaganda, the papers say.
They sent him back to the U.S., and notified the F.B.I. of their disturbing find.
Back in the Bronx, Alimehmeti started stockpiling weapons, the feds said, including two steel spike knives, and Air Force survival knife, a “credit card sized folding knife” and a “24-inch survival pocket chain saw.”
He also bought a reversible face mask, handcuffs and gloves with steel knuckles, court papers say.
In the fall of 2015, Alimehmeti started meeting with another would-be jihadi, who was actually an undercover, court papers say.
He invited the undercover over to his apartment, which had an ISIS flag on the wall, and played him ISIS-produced music videos called “nasheeds.”
“One of the nasheeds showed ISIL fighters decapitating prisoners,” the complaint says, noting that Alimehmeti told the undercover he plays the videos “to keep him motivated while he is exercising.”
He later played the video for another undercover, court filings say.
He told the undercovers he wanted to join up with ISIS in Syria, and asked for helping getting a phony passport, since his name was “in the system,” the complaint says.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Brendan Quigley described Alimehmeti as a dangerous criminal who had previously been arrested for robbery, assault, forcible touching and public lewdness.
His lawyer, Sylvie Levine, denied her client — a plumbing assistant who’s studied funeral services — was dangerous.
“In many ways, he’s just like any other 22-year-old, college-age student,” she said when he appeared before a judge in Manhattan Federal Court.
Magistrate Judge Gabriel Gorenstein ordered him held without bail, noting his “very strong ties” to his native Albania.
Alimehmeti’s neighbors on Knox Ave. in Norwood were stunned by the allegations.
They said at some point in the last two years, he disappeared for a while and when he returned, he was dressing in traditional Muslim garb and largely keeping to himself.
“When we first met him, he was mad cool and chill,” said neighbor Luis Rodriguez, 21. “Then he became more religious. I never saw him pray. It was just the way he dressed.”
Rodriguez said Alimehmeti had mentioned that he had recently returned from Albania. “I’m trying to stay out of trouble,” he said, in explaining his turn toward religion.
“But he was still regular,” Rodriguez said.
“When I read all of this, I was like, ‘What the hell? I don’t know what made him act like that. What made him change.”
Neighbor Diana Mieses, 26, said she’d known Alimehmeti for about 10 years.
“It’s a little bit insane for me,” she said. “That’s the person I would least expect. He was a pretty decent kid. Quiet. But I guess that’s why they say it’s the quiet ones you have to watch out for.”
With Rocco Parascandola
