Children Were Trained To Kill

2024 Author: Steven Freeman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 08:15

They rescued 11 children hungry and living in deplorable conditions in New Mexico. According to court documents, the children were being trained by religious extremists to be murderers and to mount shootings in schools. The Associated Press reported that Siraj Ibn Wahhaj was training children to use firearms and to storm schools. A foster parent of one of the children alleged that Wahhaj "trained the boy to use an assault rifle for future school shootings," CNN reported, citing court documents.

Investigators were searching for Wahhaj months ago for allegedly kidnapping his Georgia son in December. The defendant was found in the Amalia area of northern New Mexico along with four other adults who were part of the extremist group and 11 children between the ages of 1 to 15 years. Wahhaj's son Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj, 4, was not found, but a boy's body was found in a tunnel on the property. Prosecutors suspect the body is that of Abdul-Ghani, but tests are underway to determine it.

Two of the 11 rescued children told a social worker that Abdul-Ghani had been with them but had died after becoming ill, a sheriff's affidavit reports.

"There is one missing child, the son of the accused," Donald Gallegos, a district attorney for PEOPLE, said. "He was not one of the [11] children in the residence." Gallegos added that the corpse of the boy found in the tunnel had been wrapped in a way "consistent with a type of ritual burial."

The five arrested adults - Wahhaj, another man identified as Lucas Morton, and three women believed to be the mothers of the living children: Jany Leveille, Hujrah Wahhaj and Subhannah Wahh - face 11 charges of child abuse.

An arrest warrant obtained by PEOPLE says Wahhaj was allegedly convinced that his son - who had several severe medical conditions and was unable to walk - was "possessed by the devil". The boy's mother reported him missing on December 10 after his father took him to a park in Georgia and did not return home with him. Abdul-Ghani's mother told police that the father wanted to "exorcise" the boy, according to an affidavit.

Last Friday, authorities arrived in the desert area of Amalia looking for the father and the son and found something surprising. In an old trailer or trailer house they found extreme dirt, there was no food or water except a few potatoes and a package of rice. The children lived without shoes, in ragged clothes and without any type of hygiene. An affidavit obtained by PEOPLE also cites that the minors had no medical care and were exposed to dangers in the home such as broken glass and propane gas leaks.

All 11 children are in the custody of the New Mexico Department of Children, Youth and Families.