Mohammad Hassan Hamdan, minutes before getting detained.

DEARBORN HEIGHTS — The community was startled this week after news broke that the U.S. government had detained a local Dearborn Heights man who allegedly planned to fly to Lebanon to join the militant group Hizbullah. 

22-year-old Mohammad Hassan Hamdan was arrested on Sunday, March 16 at Detroit Metro Airport by the FBI, who had been keeping tabs on him after he allegedly told an undercover informant that he had plans to fight in the Syrian war with Hizbullah. The group is currently aiding President Bashar Assad’s forces against the anti-government forces.

Hamdan appeared before U.S. Magistrate R. Steven Whalen at the U.S. District Court in Detroit on Monday, March 17, where he was ordered to be temporarily detained until a court hearing scheduled for Monday, March 24. He was charged with “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.”

Hizbullah is classified as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government, which cites that the group is responsible for incidents that include bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the hijacking of TWA flight 847 in 1985, during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. 

According to the U.S. government, elements of the group were also responsible for the kidnapping, detention and murder of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in addition to providing explosives training to select Iraqi Shia militants since 2004. 

Hamdan, born in Lebanon, came to the U.S. in 2007 as a teenager and became a legal resident. In November 2013, he filled out an N-400 Application for Naturalization in order to become a U.S. citizen.  

According to a joint press release by the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Hamdan was charged based on a criminal complaint that “contains merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.”

However, if convicted, Hamdan could face up to 15 years in prison along with a $250,000 fine. 

But as questions remain unanswered about the case, family and friends of Hamdan have since spoken to the media, doubting the charges brought against him.  His family says that he has never expressed interest in joining Hizbullah, describing him as a normal young adult who liked to smoke hookah, play soccer with friends and joke around.

Family members add that Hamdan had recently suspected that he had been communicating with an informant, and it is possible that he could have intentionally made comments about joining Hizbullah just to get a reaction.

Talking to WWJ Newsradio 950′s Jon Hewett outside the courthouse on Monday, Hamdan’s aunt, Rehab Beydoun, said she believes her nephew was set up by a local man who tipped federal investigators.

“He was telling us, this guy is up to something, he keeps calling me, asking me questions. Why would he do that? So, he wanted to play a game with him to see where he’s going, and he got in trouble,” she said.

Since his arrest, Defense Attorney Art Weiss says that Hamdan is “adamant that he didn’t do anything wrong.” Hamdan has since told the FBI that he had planned to temporarily visit Lebanon in order to get dental work done.

But according to court documents, the government had enough evidence to arrest him before his flight last Sunday. 

The first complaint against Hamdan came on September 12, 2013, when an unnamed FBI Confident Human Source informed the agency that Hamdan had plans to travel to Syria by Christmas 2013 in order to fight alongside Hizbullah. 

At that point Hamdan had revealed to the informant that he could not leave because his Lebanese passport was being held by his sister, who was aware of his intentions and was trying to prevent him from going. Hamdan’s family challenges this charge by claiming that his sister and family had no knowledge whatsoever about his alleged intentions. 

On January 9, 2014, the informant reported to the FBI that Hamdan had received a phone call during the last week of December from an individual in Lebanon who had told him that he could come to the country by May 2014 to join Hizbullah. 

On January 28, the FBI recorded a phone conversation between Hamdan and the informant. During the conversation, Hamdan stated that he intended to go to Lebanon for the purpose of assisting Hizbullah in the Syrian conflict. 

In this phone conversation, Hamdan had also revealed to the informant that he had prior ties to Hizbullah. Hamadan is heard telling the informant that he had previously been active in Hizbullah’s ranks during the 2006 Lebanon-Israeli war, one year prior to coming to the U.S.

Those statements might seem bizarre, considering that Hamdan would have only been 14 years old at the time. However, Hamdan went on to tell the informant that he received weapons training from the militant group at a very early age, claiming that it is a common practice within the organization. 

“I am leaving behind my family….my uncles tried to convince me [not to go to Syria]…but this is my decision and no one else’s…” Hamdan is heard saying in the recorded audio. 

On March 4, Hamdan filed a report with the Dearborn Heights Police Department stating that he had lost his Lebanese passport and needed to report it missing in order to apply for a temporary one. 

Hamdan with his dog.

On March 15, the FBI received information that Hamdan had booked a flight to Lebanon and that he had transferred ownership of his vehicle to his sister. That same day, he met up with the informant in person to discuss his intentions for the trip.

According to the FBI, the meeting between Hamdan and the informant last week was recorded via audio and video with the informant’s consent and without Hamdan’s knowledge. 

In an Arabic conversation that was later verified by an FBI language specialist, the informant had told Hamdan that Hizbullah was classified as a terrorist organization and that he would be arrested if he ever tried coming back to the U.S. In this conversation, Hamdan stated that he had no intentions of coming back once he joined the group.

However, according to Hamdan’s flight itinerary, he had only planned to stay in Lebanon for seven weeks. He booked an Air France flight from Detroit to Paris. From there, he would take another flight to Beirut, where he would have arrived on March 17. On May 3, he was scheduled to fly out of Beirut and back to Paris in order to return to the U.S. 

Despite evidence that could convict him in court, Hamdan’s family believes that he was set up. This theory seems to also be popular on social media sites such as Facebook. There, dozens of local Arab Americans expressed their dismay regarding Hamdan’s arrest, with many believing it was a set up or highly likely to be false.

In December 2013, The Arab American News expressed concerns to FBI Special Agent in Charge Paul M. Abbate regarding recent trends where Arab Americans have been falsely reporting each other to the government. Abbate noted that the agency takes all allegations seriously, but if any people intentionally makes false accusations against individuals, they could be prosecuted. 

Hamdan is not the only individual arrested this week for allegedly wanting to travel to Lebanon to join Hizbullah. A 20-year-old California man named Nicholas Teausant was arrested and also charged with attempts to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization. 

Teausant, a Muslim convert and a father, is an enrolled member of the U.S. Army National Guard . He allegedly made plans to travel to Syria via Canada during spring break where he told people he would be snowboarding with friends. 

Suspect’s mother speaks with The Arab American News