Judge overturns 3 convictions in alleged Somali sex-trafficking ring NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge on Wednesday overturned the convictions of three men on sex-trafficking charges in an alleged widespread conspiracy that prosecutors said spanned Ohio, Minnesota and Tennessee. The other six defendants tried in the case had been acquitted previously. U.S. District Judge William Haynes said his decision to overrule the jury was based on the government’s failure to prove the men were part of a single, overarching conspiracy [...]

At the end of a day spent talking about some of the most intractable issues in this city, Laurel Broten, the province’s education and now newly minted children and youth minister, gave this message to Toronto’s Somali community: “Today is just the beginning.” The remarks came at the closing of a conference held to discuss issues affecting Somali-Canadians, particularly young men, six of whom have been shot dead in Toronto since June. “We need to continue to have conversations; we [...]

About 100 members of the Somali community have demonstrated outside Downing Street to call on the government to ban a herbal high. Khat, which is illegal in the US and many countries in Europe, has been chewed for centuries in east Africa and the Middle East. The campaigners said it caused medical problems and family breakdowns. The Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs is currently reviewing the harms associated with khat. Effects of chewing the leaves of the khat [...]

  Nashville’s Somalis don’t want to hear how inconvenient it is to stand in long lines at the polls. They don’t like conversations about how watching TV is ruined by all the political attack ads, how Facebook friends turn on one another during election time, how life will be so much nicer once election season ends. For them, American elections are a miracle, worlds apart from Somalia’s old two-wooden-box system of voting, where the dictator in power decided the outcome. [...]

  The 2012 U.S. Presidential election is very close and both candidates agree that Ohio will decide who gets elected President of the United States come November 6. That is why we have a political rally by one of the candidates almost every day. The state of Ohio is a microcosm of the United States with its Republican stronghold on Southern Ohio and its Democratic northeast cities of Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron. Central Ohio, which includes the City of Columbus, [...]

OTTAWA — “As you are aware,” Ottawa police Staff Sgt. Mark Patterson told me the other day, “there’s more than one side to a story.” Still, said Patterson, head of the force’s guns and gangs unit and its Direct Action Response Team (DART), “I don’t want to get into a debate” about the police’s role in the arrest and nine-day detention of Somali-American Mahad Abdulhamid Islam. The 32-year-old, a frequent visitor to Ottawa as he has family here, alleges that [...]

Jury convicted Minneapolis man of aiding terrorist group and local men who went to fight in Somalia. A one-time janitor at a Minneapolis mosque was found guilty Thursday of conspiring to help a terrorist group recruit young Minnesota men for a holy war in their native Somalia. A federal jury in Minneapolis deliberated about 8 1/2 hours before convicting Mahamud Said Omar, 46, in a case that provided the clearest picture to date of a worldwide investigation into the recruiting [...]

Defense tried to discredit witnesses: “They lied to your face.” Testimony in one of the most significant terrorism trials since the Sept. 11 attacks concluded Wednesday without the defense calling a single witness. For much of the trial that started Oct. 1, defendant Mahamud Said Omar, 46, of Minneapolis had seemed to play a bit part in the case, as federal prosecutors presented jurors the results of a worldwide investigation into the disappearance of more than 20 Minnesota men, some [...]

Federal jury in Minneapolis will resume deliberations Thursday. Jurors began deliberations Wednesday in Minneapolis in one of the most significant terrorism trials since the Al Qaida attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. The jury of eight women and four men began deliberating at 2:45 p.m. and adjourned about 4:30 p.m. Deliberations will resume Thursday morning. The defendant at times seemed to play a bit part in the trial, which began Oct. 1 and focused largely on a [...]

Assalaamu Calaykum: Dhamaan Soomaalida degen OH State iyo agagaarkeeda   Fadlan ka soo qaybgalla xafladda lagu taageerayo ama lagy ayidaayo dowladda Soomaaliya iyo magacaabista Ra’iisal Wasaaraha Dowladda Federaalka Soomaaliya Dr. Saacid Faarax Shirdoon.   Mahadsanid, Dr Saacid[1] Porived by SomaliCan.