Yet another Latino converts to Islam.
In April, the FBI got a tip from someone who had received a Facebook friend request from a person by the name of “Almlak Benitez.”
Benitez wrote that he wanted to recruit the “friend” for a U.S.-designated terrorist group, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — notorious for its videotaped beheadings of kidnapped journalists and aid workers in the Middle East.
FBI agents took one look at Benitez’s Facebook page — with postings such as “We are the islamic state. We are isis Muslims” — and directed an undercover operation that would lead to Monday’s arrest of a 23-year-old Key West man whose real name is Harlem Suarez.
Suarez, aka “Almlak Benitez,” was charged with trying to use a backpack bomb in a planned explosion on a public beach in Key West, but he also allegedly discussed carrying out a terrorist-style attack in Marathon or Miami Beach on the Fourth of July, according to the FBI.
On Tuesday, Suarez was charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, an offense that carries a potential sentence of up to life in prison, the U.S. attorney’s office said. Suarez, who lives with his parents in an apartment on Stock Island, faced a federal magistrate judge in Miami. He is being held in federal detention and will have a hearing next Monday, when his defense attorneys will ask for his release on bond before trial.
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