FILE – In this Friday, Aug. 10, 2018 file photo aerial view of a makeshift compound is seen in the desert area of Amalia, N.M., New Mexico forensic investigators announced Thursday, Aug. 16, that a highly decomposed body found at a desert compound in New Mexico has been identified as a missing Georgia boy whose father is accused of kidnapping him and performing purification rituals on the severely disabled child. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator said Thursday that the remains were those of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj. Photo: Brian Skoloff/AP
Jurors on Tuesday convicted a father of terrorism charges in a case that stemmed from the search for a 3-year-old boy who went missing from Georgia and was found dead hundreds of miles away at a squalid compound in northern New Mexico in 2018.
Prosecutors told jurors that the boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and other members of his family had fled with the toddler to a remote stretch of the high desert so they could engage in firearms and tactical training to prepare for attacks against the government. It was all tied to an apparent belief that the boy would be resurrected as Jesus Christ and provide instructions.
