U.S. Woman in Irish Terror Probe Released
Last Updated 9:23 p.m. ET
Sgt. Declan Obyrne of the Irish Garda tells CBS News that a Colorado woman detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch offended many Muslims has been released.
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was among seven people arrested in Ireland this week as authorities investigate an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist over a 2007 sketch depicting the head of the Muslim prophet Mohammed on a dog's body.
Obyrne told CBS News that a file will be prepared for Irish prosecutors to review. Although Paulin-Ramirez has been released, the Irish police will continue to investigate her and can detain her again.
Irish authorities this week announced the arrest of seven Muslims in the alleged plot, only identifying them as three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerians.
They were arrested Tuesday, hours before U.S. authorities unveiled a terror indictment against Colleen LaRose, 46, of Philadelphia, who bills herself as "Jihad Jane."
On Saturday Irish police said that three of those arrested had been released without charges. After Paulin-Ramirez's release later in the day, three men remain in custody.
According to the police in Waterford, Ireland, no formal charges were brought against Paulin-Ramirez. She could have been held without charges for a maximum of seven days.
A law enforcement official told CBS News that U.S. officials were aware of Paulin-Ramirez before the Irish Garda picked her up in their assassination probe. This official also stresses the fact that she has not been indicted in the United States.
Law enforcement is looking at whether "Jihad Jane" and Paulin-Ramirez spent time together in Ireland or the United States, and the FBI is still in the process of locating and interviewing friends and family of Paulin-Ramirez.
Paulin-Ramirez fits the pattern of LaRose in that she spent an enormous amount of time on the Internet where she met Muslim men and traveled overseas.
Paulin-Ramirez, who also took her 6-year-old son Christian with her to Ireland, met and married an Algerian man who was also among those arrested.
One U.S. official described it as an "online seduction," but investigators stress that they have not drawn any conclusions that Paulin-Ramirez was involved in the plot, noting that she has been not been charged.
In an interview with CBS News, Paulin-Ramirez's aunt, Cindy Holcomb Jones, said she was very close with her niece until May 2009. That's when Paulin-Ramirez was inexplicably drawn to Islam, Jones said.
Jones said she doesn't think Paulin-Ramirez's interest in the religion had anything to do with her stepfather George Mott being Muslim. However, she said she was worried with her niece's constant participation in Muslim chat rooms and Web sites.
"Her attitude changed; she became more withdrawn from the family and disrespectful to the family," Jones said. "She lost interest in everything except being on the Internet in those people."
Paulin-Ramirez's mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott of Leadville, Colo., told CBS News her marriage to George Mott showed her Islam is a peaceful religion.
"I know Islam is not hate-filled," Holcomb-Mott said. "True Islam is not hate-filled."
Watch Christine Holcomb-Mott talk about her daughter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez
However, Holcomb-Mott said she was worried what Paulin-Ramirez's son was being taught. Holcomb-Mott said her grandson has told her, "All Christians are going go to hell, burn in hell, if they're not Muslim."
Holcomb-Mott said she wasn't happy her grandson was so far away from her in Ireland.
"We don't have money, but hopefully there's somebody in this country that will help me get that baby back here where he is safe," Holcomb-Mott said. "That's all we want.
"I'd love to have our daughter come home and straighten out and get out of this mess," Holcomb-Mott said. "But that's her choice. That baby isn't being given a choice."
Paulin-Ramirez's departure for Ireland on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 last fall - she abandoned her car at the Denver airport - came as a total surprise to the family.
"No warning whatsoever," Jones said. "On Sept. 11, she walked on everything - her job, her school, everything - and we didn't know where she was for two weeks."
LaRose (left) is accused of plotting with others to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks because of his 2007 sketch depicting the head of the Muslim prophet Muhammad on a dog's body. The drawing provoked terror front al Qaeda in Iraq to offer a $100,000 bounty for his slaying.
Investigators are going through Paulin-Ramirez's computer to look for any links between her and LaRose, who has been indicted for conspiring to kill a foreign national, but they still need to talk to her in person, and are waiting to see if Irish authorities release her.
"We are aware of the arrests in Ireland earlier this week, but at this time we have no comment on the identities of those arrested in Ireland; our investigation continues," said Justice Department Spokesman Dean Boyd.
Paulin-Ramirez's parents told the Associated Press that their daughter was a straight-A nursing student when she abruptly left Colorado last fall with her 6-year-old son and turned up in Ireland.
Holcomb-Mott was informed of the arrest of her daughter by the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies, she told the AP.
Denver FBI officials say they can't confirm that the FBI had contacted Mott about the case.
Irish police refused to confirm whether Paulin-Ramirez is the woman in custody, and have declined to release the identities of any of those arrested.
The Wall Street Journal, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the case, reported on its Web site that Paulin-Ramirez was being held in the alleged plot.
Holcomb-Mott said she's concerned for the welfare of her grandson, who has been placed in the custody of Ireland's foster care system.
"This is about my baby," Holcomb-Mott said. "We need some help to get this baby back. I'm concerned about my daughter but I'm concerned about our baby boy because he shouldn't be caught in the middle of this."
The Motts said Paulin-Ramirez announced to her family last spring that she was converting to Islam and began wearing headscarves, and later a hijab.
"It came out of left field," Holcomb-Mott said. "I knew she was talking to these people online... What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family and become this person? I don't know how or why. All I know is she was in contact with this Jihad Jane.
"The only thing I could think of is that they brainwashed her."
Irish police say LaRose visited Ireland in September and spent about two weeks with the Algerian-American couple and other suspects. Investigators believe she began communicating last year with the Irish-based suspects in member-only Internet chat rooms.
Her stepfather, George Mott, said the FBI seized a desktop computer in late September but did not tell the family what they found.
Holcomb-Mott said her daughter was getting 4.0 grades as she studied to become a nurse practitioner and was working a $30,000 job at Eagle Valley Medical Clinic in nearby Edwards.
The Motts said Paulin-Ramirez began to withdraw and argue with her parents about her religion in the months after announcing her conversion.
© 2010 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report. Sgt. Declan Obyrne of the Irish Garda tells CBS News that a Colorado woman detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch offended many Muslims has been released.
Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, 31, was among seven people arrested in Ireland this week as authorities investigate an alleged plot to kill the cartoonist over a 2007 sketch depicting the head of the Muslim prophet Mohammed on a dog's body.
Obyrne told CBS News that a file will be prepared for Irish prosecutors to review. Although Paulin-Ramirez has been released, the Irish police will continue to investigate her and can detain her again.
Irish authorities this week announced the arrest of seven Muslims in the alleged plot, only identifying them as three Algerians, a Libyan, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerians.
They were arrested Tuesday, hours before U.S. authorities unveiled a terror indictment against Colleen LaRose, 46, of Philadelphia, who bills herself as "Jihad Jane."
On Saturday Irish police said that three of those arrested had been released without charges. After Paulin-Ramirez's release later in the day, three men remain in custody.
According to the police in Waterford, Ireland, no formal charges were brought against Paulin-Ramirez. She could have been held without charges for a maximum of seven days.
A law enforcement official told CBS News that U.S. officials were aware of Paulin-Ramirez before the Irish Garda picked her up in their assassination probe. This official also stresses the fact that she has not been indicted in the United States.
Law enforcement is looking at whether "Jihad Jane" and Paulin-Ramirez spent time together in Ireland or the United States, and the FBI is still in the process of locating and interviewing friends and family of Paulin-Ramirez.
Paulin-Ramirez fits the pattern of LaRose in that she spent an enormous amount of time on the Internet where she met Muslim men and traveled overseas.
Paulin-Ramirez, who also took her 6-year-old son Christian with her to Ireland, met and married an Algerian man who was also among those arrested.
One U.S. official described it as an "online seduction," but investigators stress that they have not drawn any conclusions that Paulin-Ramirez was involved in the plot, noting that she has been not been charged.
In an interview with CBS News, Paulin-Ramirez's aunt, Cindy Holcomb Jones, said she was very close with her niece until May 2009. That's when Paulin-Ramirez was inexplicably drawn to Islam, Jones said.
Jones said she doesn't think Paulin-Ramirez's interest in the religion had anything to do with her stepfather George Mott being Muslim. However, she said she was worried with her niece's constant participation in Muslim chat rooms and Web sites.
"Her attitude changed; she became more withdrawn from the family and disrespectful to the family," Jones said. "She lost interest in everything except being on the Internet in those people."
Paulin-Ramirez's mother, Christine Holcomb-Mott of Leadville, Colo., told CBS News her marriage to George Mott showed her Islam is a peaceful religion.
"I know Islam is not hate-filled," Holcomb-Mott said. "True Islam is not hate-filled."
Watch Christine Holcomb-Mott talk about her daughter, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez
However, Holcomb-Mott said she was worried what Paulin-Ramirez's son was being taught. Holcomb-Mott said her grandson has told her, "All Christians are going go to hell, burn in hell, if they're not Muslim."
Holcomb-Mott said she wasn't happy her grandson was so far away from her in Ireland.
"We don't have money, but hopefully there's somebody in this country that will help me get that baby back here where he is safe," Holcomb-Mott said. "That's all we want.
"I'd love to have our daughter come home and straighten out and get out of this mess," Holcomb-Mott said. "But that's her choice. That baby isn't being given a choice."
Paulin-Ramirez's departure for Ireland on the eighth anniversary of 9/11 last fall - she abandoned her car at the Denver airport - came as a total surprise to the family.
"No warning whatsoever," Jones said. "On Sept. 11, she walked on everything - her job, her school, everything - and we didn't know where she was for two weeks."
(AP/SITE Intelligence Group)
Investigators are going through Paulin-Ramirez's computer to look for any links between her and LaRose, who has been indicted for conspiring to kill a foreign national, but they still need to talk to her in person, and are waiting to see if Irish authorities release her.
"We are aware of the arrests in Ireland earlier this week, but at this time we have no comment on the identities of those arrested in Ireland; our investigation continues," said Justice Department Spokesman Dean Boyd.
Paulin-Ramirez's parents told the Associated Press that their daughter was a straight-A nursing student when she abruptly left Colorado last fall with her 6-year-old son and turned up in Ireland.
Holcomb-Mott was informed of the arrest of her daughter by the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies, she told the AP.
Denver FBI officials say they can't confirm that the FBI had contacted Mott about the case.
Irish police refused to confirm whether Paulin-Ramirez is the woman in custody, and have declined to release the identities of any of those arrested.
The Wall Street Journal, quoting anonymous sources familiar with the case, reported on its Web site that Paulin-Ramirez was being held in the alleged plot.
Holcomb-Mott said she's concerned for the welfare of her grandson, who has been placed in the custody of Ireland's foster care system.
"This is about my baby," Holcomb-Mott said. "We need some help to get this baby back. I'm concerned about my daughter but I'm concerned about our baby boy because he shouldn't be caught in the middle of this."
The Motts said Paulin-Ramirez announced to her family last spring that she was converting to Islam and began wearing headscarves, and later a hijab.
"It came out of left field," Holcomb-Mott said. "I knew she was talking to these people online... What caused her to turn her back on her country, on her family and become this person? I don't know how or why. All I know is she was in contact with this Jihad Jane.
"The only thing I could think of is that they brainwashed her."
Irish police say LaRose visited Ireland in September and spent about two weeks with the Algerian-American couple and other suspects. Investigators believe she began communicating last year with the Irish-based suspects in member-only Internet chat rooms.
Her stepfather, George Mott, said the FBI seized a desktop computer in late September but did not tell the family what they found.
Holcomb-Mott said her daughter was getting 4.0 grades as she studied to become a nurse practitioner and was working a $30,000 job at Eagle Valley Medical Clinic in nearby Edwards.
The Motts said Paulin-Ramirez began to withdraw and argue with her parents about her religion in the months after announcing her conversion.
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mohammmed is not God. He can be criticized as much as any other killer, polygamist and slave owner.
By the way, most people consider "marrying" a 14-year old girl
pedophilia. mohammed and Warren Jeffs would have been cell mates if
they both lived today....
These are like some simple IQ-tests, if you can't see the stupidity and laugh over it, then yours is low. And you will be prone to do the dirty work, and the employer will just be happy and live in prosperity like the people behind Al-Qaeda...
Everyone should educate themselves to see that religion is always used as a tool. (Nothing bad in religion itself, it's meant to make people happy...) Now, the Al-Qaeda has some real cause to use it, and there also lays the way to fight terrorism.
OK, there are people who are so - should it be said in psychosis - that it is impossible to communicate wih them. Then there is nothing to be done, they have to be in a controlled space and state. But majority of people are intelligent enough to learn and think the various sides of things...
There is no country that has a Christian militia. You may need to back away from the village computer for a while. It's actually easy to do, when you see a keyboard, don't go anywhere near it.
================================================
If it's so easy to do, lets see if you can do it for a few weeks.
("banned60times" must have been asleep while this was going on...)
"The Srebrenica Massacre, also known as the Srebrenica Genocide, refers to the July 1995 killing of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys, as well as the ethnic cleansing of 25,000-30,000 refugees in the area of Srebrenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina, by units of the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS) under the command of General Ratko Mladic during the Bosnian War. A paramilitary unit from Serbia known as the Scorpions, officially part of the Serbian Interior Ministry until 1991, also participated in the massacre. In 1993 the United Nations had declared Srebrenica a "safe area" under UN protection but its Protection Force (UNPROFOR), represented on the ground by a 400-strong contingent of armed Dutch peacekeepers, failed to prevent the massacre.
The Srebrenica massacre is the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. In 2004, in a unanimous ruling on the "Prosecutor v. Krstic" case, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) located in The Hague ruled that the Srebrenica massacre was genocide, the Presiding Judge Theodor Meron stating:
"By seeking to eliminate a part of the Bosnian Muslims, the Bosnian Serb forces committed genocide. They targeted for extinction the 40,000 Bosnian Muslims living in Srebrenica, a group which was emblematic of the Bosnian Muslims in general. They stripped all the male Muslim prisoners, military and civilian, elderly and young, of their personal belongings and identification, and deliberately and methodically killed them solely on the basis of their identity."
In February 2007 the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concurred with the ICTY judgement that the atrocities committed at Srebrenica constituted a genocide, stating:
"The Court concludes that the acts committed at Srebrenica falling within Article II (a) and (b) of the Convention were committed with the specific intent to destroy in part the group of the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina as such; and accordingly that these were acts of genocide, committed by members of the VRS in and around Srebrenica from about 13 July 1995."
There is no country that has a Christian militia
====================================================
You're wrong.
"The Karantina massacre took place early in the Lebanese Civil War on January 18, 1976. With the breakdown in authority of the Lebanese government the militancy of radical factions increased. Black Saturday preceded Karantina by 6 weeks.
Karantina was a predominantly Muslim slum district in Christian east Beirut controlled by forces from the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), inhabited by Kurds, Syrians and Palestinians. [5] The fighting and subsequent killings also involved an old quarantine area near the port and nearby Maslakh quarter.
Karantina was overrun by the Lebanese Christian militias, resulting in the deaths of approx. 1,500 people.
After Phalange, Guardians of the Cedars and Tiger militia forces took control of the Karantina district on 18 January 1976, Tel al-Zaatar was placed under siege.
The Damour massacre was a reprisal for Karantina."
"Nigeria: Muslim Villagers Flee
May 8, 2004
Thousands of Muslims have fled Yelwa, in central Nigeria, after an attack on Sunday by Christian militia that left hundreds dead. The attack was a flare-up in a longstanding dispute between Muslim herders from the Hausa-Fulani ethnic group and ethnic Tarok Christian farmers. The refugees, many wounded, said Christians manning roadblocks tried to kill them as they left."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/08/world/
world-briefing-africa-nigeria-muslim-villagers-flee.html
=================================================
"The Sabra and Shatila massacre - or Sabra and Chatila massacre - was a massacre of Palestinian and Lebanese Muslim civilians carried out between 16 and 18 September 1982 by the Christian Lebanese Forces militia group, following the assassination of Phalangist leader and president-elect Bachir Gemayel. The Israeli Defense Force (IDF), who surrounded Beirut's Palestinian refugee camps after having invaded Lebanon, allowed the Lebanese Forces militia to enter two of these refugee camps, Sabra and Shatila. The exact number killed by the Lebanese Forces militia is disputed, with estimates commonly in the neighborhood of 3,500."