Siraj Ibn Wahhaj

The backstory

The family and the boy

According to the 10th Circuit’s summary of the trial evidence, Wahhaj was legally married to Abdul-Ghani’s mother, and the boy was born in August 2014.¹ Wahhaj also had a religious marriage to Jany Leveille, with whom he had several children.¹ His sisters, Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, were also part of the household that later moved to New Mexico, along with Subhanah’s husband, Lucas Morton.¹

The court said Abdul-Ghani suffered hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy at birth, which delayed his development, and that he also had a form of cerebral palsy and seizures.¹ With medication, therapy and his mother’s care, he had begun speaking and moving on his own by age 3. His mother was his primary caretaker, and “no one else gave him his medication,” the court wrote.¹

Ruqyah and the accusation

In October 2017, the court said, Wahhaj and Hujrah traveled to England to learn ruqyah, which the opinion describes in its more intrusive form as “[a] Muslim version of an exorcism.”¹ Around the same time, Leveille said she had received messages from God that Abdul-Ghani was her son and that his mother had used black magic, and the others believed her.¹ The boy’s mother testified that Wahhaj accused her of casting spells on the child: “He accused me of black magic, I’m not that type of a woman to practice black magic.”⁷

Taking the boy

According to the court, the boy’s mother denied the accusation and asked for a divorce in late November 2017.¹ On Nov. 30 or Dec. 1, Wahhaj told her he was taking Abdul-Ghani to the park while she showered; he had left the boy’s medication behind, and he did not return.¹ She testified that she tried to track them by phone and then contacted police and child protective services.⁷ On Dec. 18, a Georgia juvenile court issued a pick-up order authorizing law enforcement to retrieve the boy and place him with his mother.¹

The journey to New Mexico

The court said the group left most of their belongings and went to Alabama, where Morton or Wahhaj owned property.¹ After Leveille said God was directing them to New Mexico, they set out in three vehicles. In Alabama, Wahhaj crashed and totaled his car; officers noticed “many firearms” in it but had no grounds to detain anyone, and the group continued in Morton’s box truck with an attached camper.¹ By Dec. 17 they had reached a remote lot near Amalia, New Mexico, with “no water or electricity.”¹

The death

According to the appeals court’s account of the evidence, Wahhaj performed physically intrusive ruqyah on the boy daily after taking him; the sessions lasted hours and made him scream, cry and kick.¹ During a session on Dec. 24, 2017, the court wrote, Wahhaj held the boy down and “put his hand on Abdul Ghani’s jugular vein,” and the boy “began choking and foaming at the mouth until he stopped breathing.”¹ At trial, one of Leveille’s sons, who was 13 at the time, testified about the ritual; according to AP’s account of the testimony, no one called 911 or took the boy to a hospital.⁸

The court said the group wrapped the body in plastic and put it under Hujrah’s bed.¹ The body was later placed in a tunnel on the property; it was too decomposed for a cause of death to be determined, and no one was charged with causing the death.⁸ Federal prosecutors alleged that the group had withheld the boy’s anti-seizure medication.³

The prophecy and the training

The court said Leveille prophesied that the boy “would return as Isa,” or Jesus, on Easter and lead the group to “corrupt institutions,” including the federal government, and that the men would form an army and kill anyone who did not believe in him.¹ When that did not happen, according to the Justice Department, Leveille suggested he would return around his birthday in August 2018.²

The court said Wahhaj, Morton and the older boys began firearms combat training; they built a firing range, hid weapons, dug a tunnel “in case … of escape,” and kept watch in preparation for a firefight.¹ Leveille’s son testified that Wahhaj’s role was to train the army.⁸ Prosecutors said the group had 11 firearms, including an AR-15-style rifle, and that some children were required to take part in the training.³

The raid

On Aug. 3, 2018, the Taos County Sheriff’s Office executed warrants at the compound.³ According to the court, Morton warned the others; Wahhaj armed himself and told one of Leveille’s sons to get a weapon, but stood down when Leveille told them to.¹ He was taken into custody without shots fired.³ Authorities found 11 children at the compound.⁴ The adults would not say where Abdul-Ghani was; a child eventually told officers his body was in a tunnel, and his remains were found there on Aug. 6, 2018.¹²

State charges, then federal

Wahhaj was first charged in New Mexico state court with child abuse resulting in death and pleaded not guilty.¹⁰ The state child abuse charges against the compound adults were later dismissed.⁹ In March 2019, a federal grand jury in Albuquerque returned terrorism-related charges against all five adults and kidnapping charges against four.⁹ Prosecutors alleged that Wahhaj gathered firearms and ammunition, built and maintained a firing range with Morton, and led firearms and tactical training.⁹

Wahhaj was not charged with kidnapping. The appeals court noted that the federal kidnapping statute excepts parents, and that the government chose not to prosecute him on those counts.¹ The government dismissed firearms-related counts against him.¹

The trial

Leveille pleaded guilty on Aug. 8, 2023, to conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and to possessing a firearm while unlawfully in the United States.² Wahhaj and Morton represented themselves at the three-week trial.⁴⁷ On Oct. 17, 2023, the jury convicted Wahhaj of conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, providing material support to terrorists, and conspiracy to murder an officer or employee of the United States.² It convicted Morton of the same three counts and of the two kidnapping counts, and it convicted Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj of the kidnapping counts only.¹

Sentencing

On March 6, 2024, U.S. District Judge William Johnson sentenced Wahhaj, Morton and both sisters to life in prison, and Leveille to 15 years.⁶ The Justice Department said the life sentences were without the possibility of parole.² The judge said he was bound by the federal kidnapping statute, which requires life when a kidnapping results in death.⁶

The appeal

On Oct. 6, 2026, a 10th Circuit panel of Judges Phillips, McHugh and Moritz, in an opinion by Judge Phillips, rejected several of Wahhaj’s challenges, including to the sufficiency of the evidence on the conspiracy-to-kill count.¹ But it held that the district court “committed structural error when it excluded the pro se defendants from a jury-note conference of tactical importance,” and it vacated Wahhaj’s and Morton’s material-support and conspiracy-to-kill convictions and remanded “for further proceedings.”¹ According to news reports, the conference concerned a note the jury sent during deliberations and was held with the judge and standby counsel.⁵⁴

The court also reversed the kidnapping convictions of Morton and the two sisters, holding that the jury instructions “misstated the meaning of § 1201(a)‘s ‘unlawfully’ element” and that the government “didn’t introduce enough evidence” that their conduct was unlawful.¹ As AP reported, the panel found that no court order or state law made it illegal for the boy’s father to take him, and the family members cannot be retried on the kidnapping charges.⁴ The Albuquerque Journal reported that the sisters were expected to go free.⁵ Leveille, who pleaded guilty, was not a party to the appeal.¹

Personal backstory

Early life

Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam who leads Masjid Taqwa.¹¹ No account of his childhood or schooling appears in the sources reviewed.

Family

He was legally married to Abdul-Ghani’s mother and had a religious marriage to Leveille, with whom he had several children.¹ After the raid, his father told Reuters he was baffled by the events, had not communicated directly with his son since the search began, and wanted his son and daughters to have good legal representation.¹¹ At sentencing in 2024, his father told the defendants he forgave them and said he did not think they intended the boy to die.⁶

Mental health

No mental-health testimony or findings about Wahhaj appear in the sources reviewed.

Before the arrest

His father told Reuters in 2018 that Wahhaj worked for a New York company that provided security to corporate executives and celebrities, and described him as “high-strung” at times but not violent or “radical.”¹¹ Reuters also reported that he was licensed to carry firearms in 36 states.¹¹ He was 39 when he was arrested.¹¹

In custody

Wahhaj was arrested on Aug. 3, 2018, was in custody after his 2023 conviction, and remained in custody as of Oct. 7, 2026.³⁵ Representing himself at trial, he played a video of Abdul-Ghani for jurors to suggest the boy came from a loving family; the judge found him argumentative at times and asked him to save his remarks for closing arguments.⁷ No statement from him after the appeals ruling appears in the sources reviewed.