New details after Election Day terror suspect's hearing
OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — New details have come out after Election Day terror suspect Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi's hearing Thursday morning.
Tawhedi, the 27-year-old Afghan national is accused of planning a mass shooting on Election Day, allegedly inspired by ISIS.
Thursday's hearing was held at the Oklahoma City federal court. The FBI agent that was assigned to Tawhedi's case took the stand and released new developments.
Tawhedi's past, according to the agent, includes him working security for the C.I.A at the Eagle military base in Kabul, Afghanistan. This is the last base that U.S. troops had control of before 2021.
The case was presided by U.S. Magistrate Judge Suzanne Mitchell, who ruled there was enough sufficient evidence to move forward with the case. The judge ordered Tawhedi to be detained and said he would be a danger to the community if he was released.
U.S. Marshals took Tawhedi away after the judgment.
He is said to have moved to America in 2021 where he sometimes worked as a Lyft rideshare driver. In December 2023, Tawhedi moved to Oklahoma City and recently worked as a mechanic, changing oil.
In court, Tawhedi was wearing gray jail clothes and was brought in with shackles. An interpreter was translating everything over a headset in Dari, one of the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan.
The agent that took the stand described how two of Tawhedi's brothers and another were arrested in France this month because they were possibly conducting a terror attack there.
We now know that that Tawhedi, after being arrested on October 7, was interviewed for around six hours by officials.
The DOJ says 27-year-old Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi liquidated his family’s assets, resettled his family members, and bought AK-47 assault rifles and ammunition in preparation for the planned attack.
A criminal complaint alleges that the FBI found messages between Tawhedi and an unnamed person with ties to ISIS. The FBI also reportedly found a video of Tawhedi reading a text to two children that “describes the rewards a martyr receives in the afterlife,” as well as saved ISIS propaganda on his iCloud and Google accounts.
The judge determined that, based on the evidence provided, Tawhedi would be a danger to the community if released and that the court believes he is a flight risk. He was then handed back over to U.S. Marshals where he will remain in federal detention throughout the trial.
"It's not the slightest bit surprising that the judge chose to keep him in custody while the case is pending," said Ed Blau, attorney at Blau Law Firm in Oklahoma City.
He was one of a few attorneys who attended the Thursday hearing.
"The defense attorney did his best to argue for his client," said Blau.
News 4 asked Blau why, if the family knew about this plot, haven't been charged or investigated.
"In the U.S., just because somebody knows about potential criminal activity doesn't mean they are part of the crime," said Blau. "You can rest assured that the defendant's entire family and friends are all going to be looked at by federal investigators, their electronics, possibly anything they've written. That's after this if they think it's possible."
Tawhedi's presumed family members were at the hearing, two women were seen crying throughout most of it.
Tawhedi’s public defender argued for his pretrial release, saying that because Tawhedi did not have a criminal record in the United States, he wouldn’t be a flight risk. The judge, however, did not agree with that argument.
The judge decided to deny that while he awaits trial.