A Somali national charged with plotting to blow up a Columbus-area shopping mall appeared Monday afternoon in U.S. District Court in Columbus.
A four-count indictment unsealed today charges Nuradin Abdi, 32, with conspiring with admitted al-Qaida member Iyman Faris and others to detonate a bomb at the unidentified shopping mall.
The indictment says Abdi had gotten military-style training in Ethiopia.
Abdi also is charged with fraud and misuse of documents by claiming that he had been granted valid asylum status in the United States.
Prosecutors say he obtained that refugee document under false pretenses.
The FBI says Abdi was arrested on immigration charges and has been in federal custody since November 28th, 2003. The suspect's brother of says Abdi brother loved the United States and hated terrorists. Seventeen-year-old Mohamed AbdiKarani says he and his brother came to the U-S from Somalia about nine years ago. He says Abdi knew Iyman Faris through the mosque they both attended. AbdiKarani says his family was surprised when Faris was indicted on terrorism charges. He says Abdi has two young children and that his wife is expecting a third.