Hoboken Law enforcement officials stand watch exterior the United Synagogue of Hoboken final Thursday in Hoboken, N.J.
Ryan Kryska/AP
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Ryan Kryska/AP
Hoboken Law enforcement officials stand watch exterior the United Synagogue of Hoboken final Thursday in Hoboken, N.J.
Ryan Kryska/AP
NEWARK, N.J. — A person accused of posting a broad on-line risk final week that spurred heightened safety at Jewish synagogues and faculties in New Jersey is now going through prices, federal prosecutors introduced Thursday.
Omar Alkattoul, 18, of Sayreville, is charged with transmitting a risk in interstate and overseas commerce and was scheduled to make his preliminary court docket look in Newark on Thursday afternoon, the place he might be represented by a federal public defender. That workplace usually doesn’t touch upon instances.
Alkattoul used a social media app on Nov. 1 to ship a hyperlink to a doc entitled “When Swords Collide,” based on prosecutors, and he admitted to the individual he despatched it to that he wrote the doc, stating: “It is within the context of an assault on Jews.” In keeping with the second particular person, Alkattoul additionally despatched the doc to no less than 5 different individuals utilizing one other social media utility.
The FBI issued a statewide alert on Nov. 3 and introduced a suspect had been recognized the following day, however they didn’t establish him at the moment. The warning prompted some municipalities throughout the state to ship further cops to protect homes of worship and faculties.
Alkattoul allegedly mentioned his plan to kill as “an act of revenge” for the loss of life of Muslims, authorities stated. They’ve beforehand stated they didn’t imagine he had the means or motive to hold out any particular assault. He may resist 5 years in jail if convicted of the cost he faces.
Public warnings about nonspecific threats in opposition to Jewish establishments, made by teams together with Christian supremacists and Islamist extremists, aren’t uncommon within the New York Metropolis space, and plenty of become false alarms.
However the space has additionally seen lethal assaults, together with the firebombings of two synagogues and an assault on a rabbi’s residence in 2012, a deadly stabbing at a Hanukkah celebration in 2019, and a capturing in 2019 that killed three individuals in a kosher market and a police officer.
Exterior the New York Metropolis area, the bloodbath that killed 11 individuals on the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh 4 years in the past left an indelible mark.
