By Randy Furst

Prosecutors sought longest prison sentences for Kamal Said Hassan and Mahamud Said Omar for their roles in the “pipeline” that sent young men to fight in Somalia.

Kamal Said Hassan will serve 10 years in prison for his role in the “Minnesota pipeline” that carried young men to Somali to fight in that country’s civil war.

U.S. Chief Judge Michael Davis issued the sentence Monday afternoon in federal court in Minneapolis. Hassan was facing up to 38 years in prison but federal prosecutors recommended that he serve no more than 10 to 12 years because of “extraordinary cooperation” with the investigation.

Hassan was one of the key witnesses who testified against Mahamud Said Omar last October. Omar was convicted and is to be sentenced later in the day.

Of the nine people to be sentenced this week, federal prosecutors have sought the longest prison terms for Omar, who helped arrange travel for Hassan and other young men.

Four people will be sentenced Tuesday and three more on Thursday.

Kamal Said Hassan: “I was a foot soldier”

Hassan pleaded guilty Aug. 12, 2009, to two terror-related counts, and in 2012 he testified against Mahamud Said Omar in hopes of receiving a shorter sentence.

In Omar’s trial Hassan testified that he left Minneapolis for Somalia in 2007. He went to a training camp where he learned to fight and was featured in a promotional video encouraging other Americans to join the fight.

In 2008 he said he and other Minnesotans were involved in an ambush of Ethiopian soldiers. After that, he said he fled Al-Shabab with the help of his family and the FBI.

In a memorandum filed last month, prosecutors said the long sentence was necessary to both deter Hassan from using violence “to bring about change in the governments of foreign countries” and to “send a message to the community at large that the United States does not tolerate such abhorrent criminal conduct.”

They noted that while Hassan cooperated with the FBI, he lied to agents about some of his activities in initial interviews.

His defense attorneys, Manny Atwal and Andrew Mohring, argued in a pre-sentence brief that their client had only been “a foot soldier” rather than a leader, and he “has shown real real remorse for his actions by cooperating with the government.”

Mahamud Said Omar: ‘No evidence … I committed any crime’

Prosecutors want a 50-year sentence for Omar, who was convicted in October 2012 of five terror-related counts.

Three men who went to Somalia to fight testified that Omar arranged their travel. They said Omar flew to Somalia, visited an Al-Shabab safe house in early 2008 and provided cash for rifles. Prosecutors said Omar helped arrange travel for six more recruits in 2008 even after Shirwa Ahmed, of Minneapolis, blew himself up in a suicide attack in Somalia.

In November 2008 Omar sought asylum in the Netherlands, but was extradited. During closing arguments in his trial, he said, “No evidence proves that I committed any crime.”

In arguing for 50 years, prosecutors John Docherty, Charles Kovats Jr. and William Narus, said Omar “played a key role in facilitating and financing the movement of young men from the United States to Somalia,” both before and after the Secretary of State designated it a foreign terrorist organization.

“The pain, physical and psychological, that the defendant’s crimes have caused both here and in Minnesota, and in Somalia is almost incalculable, as is the threat his participation in international terrorism posed to the national security of the United States.”

Omar’s defense attorneys, Andrew Birrell and Jon Hopeman, argue for a lower sentence, saying Omar “was a pawn, who, because of his mental disabilities became involved in an organization whose evil was far more advanced than he could comprehend.”

They said he was a janitor at a mosque “which unfortunately housed several individuals with extreme views who used individuals around them who could be easily manipulated.”

Because of his mental problems, they said, he was “the perfect individual to be used by the organization as a driver, courier, and a messenger without ever fully understanding to what these actions were contributing.”

Source: StarTribune