Manhattan Trial for ISIS Matchmaker

• Shaikh Abdullah Faisal, a Jamaican cleric of ISIS, is being tried in Manhattan state court for terror.
• A prosecutor stated Monday that he is “one of the most powerful English-speaking terrorists” of all time.
•  The defense counters that Faisal’s hate speeches and matchmaking for ISIS brides don’t equal terror.

Shaikh Abdullah Faisal, a Jamaican-born Islamist cleric, never set fire to a building or plotted to. Instead, he made passionate speeches in London and elsewhere about violent jihad and was the matchmaker for ISIS brides.

Faisal advised women who wished to travel to the Islamic State to marry a jihadist to purchase two-way tickets and to remove their headscarves in order to avoid being notified by authorities.

Faisal is being tried in Manhattan for terror charges. 

Jurors will have to decide whether Faisal is “one the most influential English-speaking terror suspects of our times,” Gary Galperin, lead prosecutor, said in opening statements Monday. 

They will also be asked if matchmaking and recruiting alone are enough to make New York State terror law more severe.

Alex Grosshtern, defense lawyer, said to jurors that they should focus on the substance of the case and not the noise about ISIS or terror.

The lawyer stated, “Focus only on what Mr. Faisal did, not what he said.”

Born into an evangelist Christian family in Jamaica, Faisal converted to Islam in high school, and had been inciting violence against “infidels” — even urging throat-slittings and beheadings — since the late ’90s.

Galperin explained to jurors that the defendant was ISIS, which had not declared a worldwide state or “caliphate” before 2014.

According to terrorism experts and prosecutors, his teachings were transmitted via cassette tapes and then through his website. He radicalized many terrorists through these means.

The police officers who portrayed undercover “brides—”  pretend sisters “Rojin” and “Mavish” — will both testify in court about the conversations they had with Faisal via email, WhatsApp and Skype, the prosecutor said.

Faisal was charged with five counts each of conspiracy to aid terrorists and providing aid.