The attorney for Hoda Muthana, the Alabama woman who traveled to Syria and married three ISIS fighters, says he’s confident his client will be able to return to the United States despite being branded by top American officials as a terrorist.
“We are very likely to succeed,” Charles Swift, Muthana’s attorney, told Fox News. “She’s likely to come home in the end.”
Swift dismissed comments by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, claiming: “None of those people matter because they don’t get to say whether she’s a citizen or not.”
“The court will ultimately determine that.”
WATCH: @SandraSmithFox spoke with Hoda Muthana’s attorney Charles Swift after the judge strikes down a request to expedite Muthana’s case #nine2noon pic.twitter.com/CPur8X9dqS
— America’s Newsroom (@AmericaNewsroom) March 5, 2019
Muthana’s legal team claims she’s a U.S. citizen because she was born in the United States, but American officials said she isn’t, because her father was a diplomat at the time.
Pompeo said on Feb. 20 that Muthana “is not a U.S. citizen and will not be admitted into the United States.”
“She does not have any legal basis, no valid U.S. passport, no right to a passport, nor any visa to travel to the United States,” he added. “We continue to strongly advise all U.S. citizens not to travel to Syria.”
He added on March 4: “This is a woman who went online and tried to kill young men and women of the United States of America. She advocated for jihad, for people to drive vans across streets here in the United States and kill Americans.
“She’s not a U.S. citizen. She has no claim of U.S. citizenship. In fact, she’s a terrorist, and we shouldn’t bring back foreign terrorists to the United States of America. It’s not the right thing to do.”
President Donald Trump has also said that he will not allow Muthana to come back to the United States.
Muthana’s online missives have been used as evidence of the depth of her involvement in the terror group, undermining the argument forwarded by some that she was merely used as a pawn. In one, she urged Muslims in the United States: “Go on drive-bys and spill all of their blood, or rent a big truck and drive all over them. Veterans, Patriot, Memorial etc Day parade.”
This is Hoda Muthana, the daughter of Yemeni refugees who left the US to join ISIS pic.twitter.com/T0KZtAd77E
— Jack Posobiec ???????? (@JackPosobiec) February 19, 2019
In another post, she added a picture showing four passports and said: “Bonfire soon, no need for these anymore.”
Muthana was 19 when she left to go to Syria in 2014. She later fled to a refugee camp after American and allied forces decimated the radical Islamist terror group. In recent interviews, she claimed she had become disillusioned with ISIS and was “brainwashed.”
She said that she originally “became jihadi,” which by definition is an Islamic militant. It’s not clear if she participated in killing anyone.
In another interview, she added: “I’m a normal human being who has been manipulated.”
“I hope America doesn’t think I am a threat to them and I hope they accept me … I hope they excuse me because of how young and ignorant I was. I can tell them that now I have changed, now I am a mother, I have none of the ideology and hopefully everyone will see it when I get back,” she said.
She said she knows she will have to face the justice system if she returns to the United States with her young child.
Swift, her attorney, said he’s not defending Muthana’s actions when he advocates for her return to America.
“I’m not defending her conduct there. In fact, her conduct is indefensible,” Swift told Fox News.
However, Swift said U.S. law does not allow for banishment as punishment of a crime.
Swift’s comments came after a federal judge said that Muthana does not deserve special treatment, striking down a motion filed by Swift and the rest of Muthana’s legal team.
Muthana’s attorney argued that Muthana, 24, who wants to return to the United States with her 18-month-old son, is in a “precarious position” in a refugee camp in Syria after ISIS was decimated there by the United States and American allies.
She needs to return as soon as possible to avoid “dangerous conditions,” the attorney claimed, adding that it was possible Muthana could be captured or killed by the radical Islamist terror group.
Judge Reggie Walton disagreed and said there was no evidence that Muthana would face “irreparable harm” if her case wasn’t fast-tracked.
