By Mark Hosenball
WASHINGTON, June 1 (Reuters) – American Islamist militants
jailed for threatening violence over the Internet are still
posting political writings on the Web – while serving time in
federal prison.
Jesse Curtis Morton, a convert to Islam who writes under the
name Younus Abdullah Muhammed, posted a lengthy tract opposing
U.S. drone policy, on May 21, on the
website
that he launched in 2010.
Morton is serving a prison term of more than 11 years in a
Pennsylvania federal prison after pleading guilty in 2012 to
conspiring to solicit murder, make threatening communications
and “use the Internet to place others in fear.”
Morton, from Brooklyn, New York, and previously a student at
Columbia University, was jailed for threatening the writers of
the satirical television show “South Park” for their depiction
of the Prophet Mohammed in a bear outfit.
Morton wrote in his latest essay that U.S. use of lethal
drones against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Yemen had encouraged
homegrown Islamist extremism.
“The drone assassination of Anwar Awlaki in Yemen, an
Islamic preacher with tens of thousands of ardent Western
followers, has yet to be avenged but his popularity has only
risen after death,” Morton wrote, referring to the American
Muslim preacher killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen.
Another American militant, Zachary Chesser, who was found
guilty of conspiring with Morton to encourage attacks via the
Internet on the creators of “South Park,” has also posted
material while in prison. His postings appear on another website
and mainly air personal grievances, along with
some political material.
Chesser is serving a 25-year prison sentence in Marion,
Illinois, for the “South Park” case and for attempting to join
the Somali militant group al Shabaab.
Neither Morton nor other representatives of IslamPolicy
responded to a request for comment sent to an email address
posted on the website. A telephone number posted on the site was
out of order.
Lawyers for Morton and Chesser did not respond to requests
for comment.
Under free-speech guarantees in the U.S. Constitution,
federal authorities cannot impose blanket bans on such postings
by convicts, although email access is limited for prisoners, and
messages inciting violence are prohibited.
Morton and Chesser were involved in running the now defunct
website RevolutionMuslim.blogspot.com.
That was linked to a U.S. affiliate of banned British group
Al Muhajiroun, whose followers have included a man arrested for
the brutal killing of a British soldier in London last week.
Since federal prisoners are allowed to transmit closely
vetted email messages via special channels only to a small list
of approved recipients, it is possible that messages and essays
by prisoners such Morton and Chesser first went to some of those
recipients, who then arranged for posting on the Internet.
PROTECTED SPEECH
Officials said they did not know precisely how Morton and
Chesser arranged for the posting of their messages.
“Their communications with the outside are limited to
approved contacts only and subject to careful monitoring and
review to ensure that they do not facilitate criminal activity
or pose a threat to the public or the correctional facility,”
said Dean Boyd, a Justice Department spokesman.
“While we may disagree with some opinions expressed by
inmates in their limited communications to approved contacts
outside prison, we may not prosecute individuals for speech
protected under the First Amendment,” Boyd said.
U.S. law enforcement sources said authorities would likely
move quickly against Morton if Internet materials posted while
he is in prison directly encouraged violence.
Morton apologized after his sentencing in 2012 and his most
recent writings are not extremist by Islamist militant
standards. They are mostly musings on the role of Islam in
Middle Eastern political life.
A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Morton’s current
website was still important among U.S. militants, although
Morton had toned down his writings.
Older material still accessible on the site includes
communiques from Afghanistan’s Taliban group, videos promoting
the views of Abdullah al Faisal, a Jamaican imam who was jailed
by British authorities in 2003 for soliciting the murder of Jews
and Hindus, and exhortations including, “No peace with the
Jews!”
“It is surprising and ironic that two individuals, whose
extensive online activity influenced and inspired a wide network
of would-be jihadists, are still able to reach those audiences
from prison,” said Oren Siegel, director of the Center on
Extremism at the Anti-Defamation League.
(Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)
