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How This Guy Went From U.S. Marine To Radicalizing Islamists Is Almost Beyond Belief
Image for representational purposes only.
The former bodyguard to the Blind Sheik, one time gang leader, and United States Marine might have radicalized dozens of prisoners while serving time in prison. Currently in solitary confinement after pleading guilty to a gun charge, federal authorities want him to serve another 30 years.
According to Fox News, Marcus Dwight Robertson faces sentencing on June 26 for a tax fraud conviction. He is currently being held at the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County, Fla., after pleading guilty to a weapons conviction in 2011.
Robertson, also known as Imam Abu Taubah, once led the deadly New York gang “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.”
“The United States believes that the defendant is still an extremist, just as he was in the early 1990s,” prosecutors said in recent court filings asserting that Robertson continues to be a terrorist threat.
The only differences are that the defendant is now focused on training others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself, and the violent acts are to occur overseas instead of inside the United States.
The former Marine served time in prison in the 1990s for his gang-related activities, and has been in jail since 2011 on the aforementioned weapons charge. Fox News gives the details on what Robertson did during his time behind bars and the fallout thereafter:
In just one year behind bars and among the general population, he allegedly radicalized 36 fellow inmates. Prison officials moved the persuasive imam into solitary confinement in 2012, where he has remained since.
He faces sentencing later this month on a tax fraud conviction that prosecutors hope will keep him in prison for more than three decades. The U.S. attorney is using the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to seek an enhanced sentence for Robertson.
A spokeswoman for the prison told Fox News that Robertson was put into solitary confinement “for his own protection” and is now there on his own volition. “Marcus Robertson has never tried to radicalize anyone,” said Robertson’s attorney, Daniel Brodersen. “He’s tried to practice his religion in prison to the best of his ability.” Broderson maintains that his client should be immediately released.
Robertson was also a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, colloquially known as the “Blind Sheik,” who was part of the Islamic extremist group that committed the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
After Robertson was arrested in 1991 along with most of the other Forty Thieves gang, he negotiated a deal to serve only four years in prison while others served longer. Part of the deal entailed going undercover for the FBI. He was ultimately thrown out in 2007 after attacking his CIA handler in Africa, a source tells Fox News.
Should Robertson go away for a long time? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
This post originally appeared on Western Journalism – Equipping You With The Truth
Source: http://www.westernjournalism.com/how-this-guy-went-from-u-s-marine-to-radicalizing-islamists-is-almost-beyond-belief/
