MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota man admitted Friday that he was threatening U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch when he fired off an angry tweet after federal prosecutors charged six men with conspiring to join the Islamic State group.
As part of a plea agreement, Mahamed Abukar Said pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of impeding a law enforcement officer. He faces a maximum of a year in prison, a maximum fine of $100,000, one year of supervised release and up to five years of probation when he's sentenced Nov. 23.
Said, 20, of Minneapolis, was originally charged in April with two felonies after posting a message on Twitter that said, "ima whack that us attorney general."
Prosecutors concluded he actually meant the U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Andy Luger, who was in the news after his office charged the six alleged Islamic State recruits. Five of them were Said's friends, defense attorney Chris Madel said. One of Said's tweets threatened a "massacre" if they weren't freed.
Said testified that his message was directed against Lynch, not Luger.
"I was frustrated and I was trying to get my anger out," Said testified. "It was not the smartest way to do it."
Two of the six alleged recruits have pleaded guilty. The other four, along with a fifth man who was arrested earlier, face trial in February on terror charges.
The cases have created tension in Minnesota's Somali community, the largest in the U.S., partly because another man who had planned to travel to Syria to join the militants changed his mind and became an informant against the others.
