A Colorado woman who converted to Islam last year and was lured to Europe by online extremists is among seven people arrested in Ireland in connection with a suspected plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist, her parents said on Saturday.
The arrest of Jamie Paulin Ramirez, a 31-year-old mother, confirmed by a US law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity, marks the second US woman linked to such a conspiracy in recent days.
The US Justice Department said on Tuesday it has charged Colleen LaRose, a suburban Philadelphia woman who used the online pseudonyms “Fatima LaRose” and “JihadJane,” with plotting to kill an unnamed Swedish man and using the Internet to enlist co-conspirators.
Separately, Irish police said on Tuesday they had detained seven individuals suspected of planning to assassinate cartoonist Lars Vilks of Sweden in retaliation for a drawing that depicted the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog.
That cartoon is said to have prompted an Iraqi group linked with al-Qaeda to place a US$100,000 bounty on Vilk’s life. Three of those arrested — two men and a woman — were released late on Friday, police said.
Another woman was released without charge on Saturday, Irish police said, leaving three men in custody.
Police said files on all four suspects freed so far will be prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), meaning charges could still be brought.
Those originally arrested were three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and a US national, a police source said on Thursday.
US officials have declined to comment on whether the indictment of “JihadJane,” who has been in US custody since last October, was connected with the alleged Vilks plot.
But Ramirez’s mother and stepfather, Christine and George Mott of Leadville, Colorado, said they believe their daughter was recruited by LaRose, who they say introduced Ramirez to an Algerian man she married after moving to Ireland in September.
“These terrorists came into my home through the Internet, uninvited, and have ripped my family apart,” Christine Mott said in a telephone interview from the family’s home in Leadville, a small town in the Rocky Mountains about 129km southwest of Denver.
The Motts said their daughter took her six-year-old son with her to Ireland, and that he had been placed in foster care since Ramirez’s arrest on Tuesday with six others, including her new Algerian husband. Her parents described the Algerian as “Jihad Jane’s main contact over there.”
The Motts said they learned on Thursday of their daughter’s incarceration with six other foreign nationals through a US official but declined to be more specific.
Neither Irish police, nor the FBI or Justice Department would comment on whether Ramirez was one of those held.
The Motts said Ramirez had been living with her son in their home, and working at a nearby medical center while studying to be a nurse practitioner, when she stunned relatives last Easter by announcing her conversion to Islam.
Christine Mott said her daughter began spending an increasing amount of time on the Internet, conversing online with individuals who seemed to be extremists. She also began covering herself with a traditional head scarf, or hijab, worn by devout Muslim women, her mother said.
In September, Ramirez vanished, prompting the family to file a missing-persons report with local police. George Mott, himself a convert to Islam, said he talked to FBI agents and handed over Ramirez’s computer to them as evidence of the parents’ concerns that she had fallen in with extremists.
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