Abdullah Bozkurt/Stockholm
In a US federal terrorism case, Turkey was publicly named as the sponsor of an al-Qaeda–linked militant group in Syria whose operations were directed by the government of Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to trial testimony and evidentiary findings upheld on appeal.
The determination emerged in the United States v. Wadi criminal case, a prosecution and trial reviewed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which affirmed convictions for terrorism financing and conspiracy to murder abroad.
Central to the ruling was the court’s rejection of a sweeping defense claim that directly tied Jabhat al-Nusra’s actions to Turkey as a state actor in an international armed conflict.
Jabhat al-Nusra, which originated as an alias of al-Qaeda in Iraq, was designated as a terrorist group by the US and a number of countries around the world. It was listed since 2013 under the UN Security Council’s ISIL (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida Sanctions Regime, Over time, the designation was amended to reflect the group’s multiple rebranding, including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, and later Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
According to the indictment, Imad Eddin Wadi and his associate Ahmad Daniel Barodi agreed that a portion of investment funds and future profits would be used to “conceal, launder, and funnel funds” overseas, knowing the money would be used to buy weapons for jihadist militants, including rifles, grenades and rockets.
Wadi, a Syrian-born naturalized US citizen, planned to establish a halal-beef slaughterhouse in Colombia with business partner Barodi. They needed around $13 million in investments to turn their business idea into a reality. Suspicious of their plan, Wadi’s friend Hussain Baker, a confidential source for the FBI, reported Wadi and Barodi’s plan to his FBI contacts in 2017. At their direction, Baker connected Wadi and Barodi with a “representative” of an FBI-concocted “Kuwaiti Sheikh” who offered to invest in the slaughterhouse.
The US appeals court upheld terrorism convictions in a case in which Turkey was named as a sponsor of the designated terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra, the predecessor of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The defendant sought combatant immunity from prosecution, arguing that Turkey, as a state actor, sponsored the jihadist groups he was accused of financing:
The Sheikh offered to invest $9 million in Wadi and Barodi’s Colombian enterprise, on one condition: Wadi and Barodi would agree to send at least 5 percent of that investment to al-Nusra to support the jihadist entity’s violent campaign to overthrow the Syrian government. Wadi and Barodi agreed to the Sheikh’s condition without “hesitation or reservation”; indeed, they admitted that they had provided such funding in the past.
At various points during their discussions with the Sheikh’s representative, Wadi and Barodi suggested sending even more than that initial figure, including up to 100 percent of the expected profits from their slaughterhouse.
According to the evidence presented to the court during trial, Wadi and Barodi agreed they wanted to retaliate against the Syrian and Russian governments by giving $450,000 to their Syrian terrorist brethren to purchase weapons to kill those troops while knowing that their terrorist brethren were also fighting US troops.
They agreed to a percentage of the initial $9 million investment and at least 50 percent of their profits to go to the terrorists for weapons. They later increased that percentage to 70 percent of their profits being given to the terrorists and even up to 100 percent.
Of all those monies, Wadi and Barodi stated that 90 percent would go for weapons and 10 percent would go to injured terrorists and the terrorists’ women and children to give an appearance of legitimacy and to hide the money for the weapons.
Barodi then said he would use Abu Faruq in Turkey and Adham in Ukraine to get explosives. In that same conversation after Barodi hung up, Wadi explained to the confidential human source (CHS) how Adham and Abu Faruq and other mujahidin smuggled weapons purchased in Turkey and Ukraine to Barodi’s relatives who are leaders of the terrorists in Syria.
Wadi discussed particular weapons and smuggling routes in detail and what weapons would be purchased with the “Sheikh’s” money, again lending credence to his comments that he had dealt in weapons before and that both he and Barodi had been supporting these types of terrorists fighting the Syrian government since 1998 by sending money and doing weapons purchases, likely killing some of the people they intended to target, including Syrian soldiers and Alawite women and children.
From early on in May 2017, Wadi was recorded explaining that he had ways to smuggle anything through the Turkish border and had been doing so for a long time, stating that he and Barodi had been “putting ourselves in danger’s way before you.” Wadi then said his Turkish friend Abu Husayn could move the weapons for them and “has traded arms in huge quantities.”
The identities of Abu Faruq and Abu Huseyn — both Turkish nationals using assumed names — were not disclosed in court documents. However, earlier reporting by Nordic Monitor revealed that several officers from Turkey’s intelligence service, the Milli İstihbarat Teşkilatı (MIT), which has been implicated in the transport, arming and sponsorship of jihadist groups including al-Nusra and its successor Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, have used Arabic noms de guerre to conceal their identities.
One of them is Kemal Eskintan, a senior MIT official who at the time headed the agency’s Special Operations Directorate (Özel Operasyonlar Başkanlığı). The unit was responsible for conducting highly classified intelligence missions inside and outside Turkey, operating under direct authorization from President Erdogan.
Eskintan, a former military officer known among jihadist factions by the alias Abu Furqan, has played a central role in enabling covert Turkish state support for extremist groups not only in Syria and Libya but also in other conflict zones across the Middle East and Africa.
The charging document states that Wadi communicated repeatedly with a confidential human source and an undercover law-enforcement employee about the plan, including how money would be transferred and concealed. Prosecutors allege Wadi even discussed using profits to purchase remote-controlled aircraft capable of carrying up to 50 kilograms of explosives.
The indictment details a series of alleged overt acts, including recorded conversations and audio messages in which Wadi and his co-conspirator discussed battlefield activity, weapons needs and reports from frontline fighters in Syria. In one exchange cited by prosecutors, Wadi said he received daily reports on “how many people they have killed” and described feeling “the ecstasy of jihad” when speaking with fighters.
Prosecutors also allege that audio and video messages shared during the conspiracy included references to rocket strikes, helicopters shot down and the killing of enemies, including descriptions such as “slaughtering them like dogs.” Those weapons, prosecutors allege, were intended to be used to murder and injure individuals in Syria.
The evidence introduced by both the government and the defense often pointed to Turkey as the main gateway to foreign terrorists fighting in Syria.
Prosecutors said that in mid-2018 Wadi discussed using a trusted associate in Turkey to move cash, commodities and possibly weapons to support fighters in Syria. Court records state that in October 2018, Wadi and an associate outlined plans to send funds to the Middle East for the benefit of militants, relying on a Turkey-based intermediary to facilitate transfers to relatives fighting in Syria. The indictment further alleges that Wadi later discussed a proposed $9 million slaughterhouse investment that would involve shipping beef to Turkey and diverting proceeds to militants in Idlib, Syria.
In June 2021 the FBI terminated its undercover operation, and Wadi was arrested and indicted for conspiring to murder and maim individuals in a foreign country and for conspiring to send material support to terrorists and designated foreign terrorist organizations. Wadi proceeded to trial in May 2023, and a federal jury in Texas convicted him on all counts in the same month, finding him guilty of conspiring to murder and maim people abroad and of conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The district court sentenced Wadi to concurrent terms of 160 months’ imprisonment on each count.
During the trial defense expert Dr. Samer Abboud testified that the jihadist group Ahrar al-Sham (AAS) — which he described as affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the successor to al-Nusra — was under Turkey’s protection as of July 2017. Abboud further testified that by October 2019 AAS had become part of the Syrian National Army, operating under Turkish control and participating in military operations against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. He also testified that in 2020, during the timeframe of the charged conspiracy, AAS targeted US soldiers and Marines at Turkey’s direction. Abboud conceded, however, that HTS and AAS fought alongside one another at times between March 2013 and June 2019.
On appeal, Wadi advanced an extraordinary argument: that he was legally entitled to a combatant immunity jury instruction because al-Nusra was fighting in the Syrian civil war “under the direction and control of Turkey,” which he characterized as an international armed conflict.
According to the appellate opinion that was issued in February 2024, Wadi argued that this alleged Turkish control transformed al-Nusra into a lawful belligerent force entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions — protections that, if applicable, would bar murder convictions for killings carried out as part of legitimate warfare.
“Wadi’s argument rests upon the premise that the terrorists he conspired to support were engaged in lawful killing as part of legitimate warfare under international law. But there was unrebutted evidence at trial that al-Nusra was committing acts violative of the laws of war, “ the appellate court stated.
The opinion emphasized that even lawful combatants lose any claim to immunity when they violate the laws of war. Citing authoritative criminal-law treatises, the court wrote:
“[T]here is no combatant immunity for actions that violate the laws of war, . . . even when performed by privileged belligerents. Therefore, the killing of defenseless, unarmed, and unresisting civilians would constitute murder.”
The court then underscored the most damning evidence presented at trial — evidence it described as unrebutted.
“Most plainly, the Government presented evidence that al-Nusra was slaughtering women and children ‘like dogs’ and that Wadi knew of those murders as he conspired to support al-Nusra’s activities.”
The judges contrasted this with the defense’s complete failure to justify the killings under international law:
“By contrast, Wadi offered no evidence that those killings were justifiable acts of lawful warfare.”
On that basis the court concluded that “the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to give Wadi’s requested jury instruction.”
This section of the ruling is legally and politically significant because it shows that a US federal appellate court formally addressed — and recorded — a defense argument asserting that al-Nusra operated under Turkish direction and control in an international armed conflict.
While the court rejected the legal consequences Wadi sought to draw from that premise, it did so by focusing on al-Nusra’s atrocities, not by repudiating the existence of Turkish sponsorship as such. In doing so the Fifth Circuit placed allegations of Turkey’s role in al-Nusra’s operations squarely within a judicial record.
The court ultimately affirmed all of Wadi’s convictions, leaving intact his 160-month federal prison sentence. The ruling makes clear that neither claims of geopolitical warfare nor assertions of state direction can shield those who knowingly finance organizations responsible for mass civilian killings.
The case creates a formal legal record within the US justice system documenting allegations of Turkey’s state sponsorship of a jihadist terrorist group sanctioned by both the United Nations and numerous countries worldwide. Whether Turkey and the Islamist government of President Erdogan will ultimately be held legally liable for that conduct remains an open question.
