Guardian : Treason Suspect Once on Spiritual Quest

Treason Suspect Once on Spiritual Quest

By JEREMIAH MARQUEZ | Associated Press Writer | October 12, 2006

LOS ANGELES (AP) - As a teenager, Adam Yedihe Gadahn appeared to be on a spiritual quest.

The 28-year-old American charged Wednesday with treason for allegedly aiding al-Qaida was raised in a largely nonreligious household. At one point he dabbled with demonic heavy metal music and later studied Christianity.

Still in his teens, he abandoned both, walking into an Orange County mosque in the 1990s and pronouncing his devotion to Islam.

``I can't say when I actually decided that Islam was for me. It was really a natural progression,'' he wrote on a Web site in 1995, when he was 17 years old. ``I knew well that they were not the bloodthirsty, barbaric terrorists that the news media and the televangelists paint them to be.''

Now, Gadahn stands accused of joining al-Quaida and appearing in its propaganda videos, including one in which he declared, ``America's streets will run red with blood.''

The California native is a fugitive, believed to be somewhere in or near Pakistan. His case marks the first time a charge of treason has been used in the U.S. war on terrorism.

Gadahn is also the first American to be charged with treason in more than 50 years, and could face the death penalty if convicted. He also was indicted on a charge of providing material support to terrorists.

Gadahn ``knowingly adhered to an enemy of the United States, namely, al-Qaida, and gave al-Qaida aid and comfort ... with intent to betray the United States,'' according to the indictment, handed up by an Orange County grand jury.

Gadahn has been sought by the FBI since 2004. The agency added Gadahn to its list of most wanted terrorists, according to the indictment, and the State Department offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.

``The charge of treason is exceptionally severe and it is not one that we bring lightly,'' Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told reporters in Washington. ``But this is the right case for this charge.''

Gadahn is suspected of having attended al-Qaida training camps in Pakistan and serving as one of its translators. He has become known by his nom de guerre, Azzam al-Amriki, or ``Azzam the American.''

Appearing last month in a 48-minute video along with al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, Gadahn called on his countrymen to convert to Islam and for U.S. soldiers to switch sides in the Iraq and Afghan wars.

It was the second time he appeared in a video with al-Zawahri. In a July 7 clip marking the one-year anniversary of the terror attack on London commuters, Gadahn appeared briefly, saying no Muslim should ``shed tears'' for Westerners killed by al-Qaida attacks.

Beyond that, authorities believe he is the masked figure who appeared in two previous videos from al-Qaida, one given to ABC television in 2004 and another a few days before the fourth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

According to the indictment, Gadahn announced in the 2004 video that he had joined al-Qaida, ``a movement waging war on America and killing large numbers of Americans.''

In a 2005 video, Gadahn referred to terrorist attacks in Europe and threatened more against the United States.

The treason charge carries penalties ranging from a five-year prison sentence to the death penalty, while the charge of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization carries a possible 15-year sentence.

The last person in the U.S. convicted of treason was Tomoya Kawakita, a Japanese-American sentenced to death in 1952 for tormenting American prisoners of war during World War II. President Eisenhower later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.

Raised on a goat farm in Riverside in Southern California, Gadahn was home-schooled, partly because the dirt road outside his home often becomes impassable in winter.

The family was Christian but not particularly religious, with his father describing them as Universalist and believers in nonviolence.

After Gadahn became a Muslim, he worshipped at the Islamic Society of Orange County, which later expelled him for hitting one of its leaders in the face in May 1997.

Gadahn was sentenced to two days in jail and five days of community service, but he never showed up for the community service. He was last known to be in Southern California in 1997 or 1998.

Associated Press writers Gillian Flaccus in Garden Grove, Calif., and Lara Jakes Jordan in Washington contributed to this story.