A former Warren Central honor student who is the daughter of a Vicksburg police officer and a Starkville man accused of attempting to join the terrorist organization the Islamic State were ordered held without bail Tuesday, awaiting federal grand jury action on the charges. 

Jaelyn Young, 20, a native of Vicksburg, and Muhammad “Mo” Dakhlalla, 22, appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Allen Alexander in a two-day hearing this week.

Alexander said even though the pair have never been in trouble with the law and have relatives willing to oversee their home confinement, she believed their desire to commit terrorism is “probably still there.”

Young is the daughter of Vicksburg police officer Leonce Young, Police Chief Walter Armstrong said.  He notified the family after Jaelyn Young’s arrest.

“It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do with an officer,” Armstrong said.

Leonce Young has been with VPD for 17 years and “has done an excellent job in performing his duties and responsibilities as an officer,” Armstrong said. Leonce Young is also a 21-year veteran of the military, serving 14 deployments.

“The family is devastated and it is our understanding had no knowledge of or involvement in Jaelyn’s plans.  We understand that the Young’s love their daughter and have supported her educational career and will stand by her through the legal process,” Armstrong said.  “At this time the Young family is going through an extremely difficult time, and we would like to keep them in our thoughts and prayers.”

During the two-day hearing, prosecutors urged Alexander to deny bail, citing statements Young and Dakhlalla made to undercover agents and handwritten farewell letters they left for their families saying they would never return.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Clay Joyner likened them to Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, saying that like him, they could commit violence with knives, vehicles or homemade weapons.

“They don’t need a gun to do harm,” Joyner said. “They don’t need military training to do harm. What they need is a violent, extremist ideology, and that’s exactly what they have espoused.”

The couple were arrested Saturday in Columbus just before boarding a flight with tickets bound for Istanbul.

Alexander agreed that their apparent methodical planning overcame a recommendation by federal court personnel to allow pretrial release.

“It was a very calculated, step-by-step thing,” Alexander said of the planning that led the pair to the Golden Triangle Regional Airport Saturday morning. FBI agents arrested them there, filing criminal charges that both were attempting and conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist group, a federal crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

An FBI agent’s affidavit said both confessed their plans after their arrest. Defense attorneys declined to comment after the hearing, but told Alexander the material didn’t prove either had committed a crime.

The families of Young and Dakhlalla were still trying to come to grips with the accusations.

Dakhlalla’s family is “absolutely stunned” by his arrest, said Columbus lawyer Dennis Harmon, who represents the family. He said Tuesday they have been cooperating with the FBI.

Dakhlalla’s father, Oda H. Dakhlalla, is the longtime imam of the Islamic Center of Mississippi in Starkville, Harmon said, and has previously been reported to be a native of Bethlehem, in the West Bank. His New Jersey-born mother, Lisa Dakhlalla, has run a restaurant in Starkville and sold Middle Eastern food at farmers’ markets. Harmon said Dakhlalla is the youngest of three sons and was preparing to start graduate school at Mississippi State University.

Harmon said the FBI searched the Dakhlalla home over the weekend and that the family “did not expect this at all.”

The center is in a quiet, older neighborhood in Starkville and the Dakhlalla’s home, which sits across the street, is surrounded by high hedges. A sign stating “private property, no trespassing” greets visitors at the entranceway to the home.

When approached Tuesday by The Associated Press, Dakhlalla’s father referred all questions to the family’s attorney.

Court papers say both Young and Dakhlalla are U.S. citizens. Mississippi State University spokesman Sid Salter said records show Dakhlalla graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, while Starkville High School confirmed Tuesday that he graduated from there in 2011.

Salter said Young was enrolled until May as a sophomore chemistry major but has not enrolled for classes since.

 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.