RALEIGH -- A federal grand jury has indicted three people from the Triangle Muslim community on charges of plotting to kill witnesses who testified against one of them in a North Carolina terrorism trial.
The indictments handed up Tuesday named Hysen Sherifi, 27, his brother Shkumbin Sherifi, 21, and Nevine Aly Elsheikh, 46, a special education teacher. In a nine-count indictment, they are accused of conspiring to hire a hit man to behead three witnesses who testified against Hysen Sherifi, who was convicted in October. The targeted witnesses are not identified in court documents available to the public.
Elsheikh and Shkumbin Sherifi were arrested last month and are in custody.
Elsheikh, on leave from Sterling Montessori Academy and Charter School in Morrisville since her arrest, has appealed a judge's order that she remain jailed until her trial. Her attorneys said at a detention hearing last month that she was nothing more than a courier who passed information from Hysen Sherifi, while he was in jail, to a man on the outside, not knowing about the alleged plot.
Hysen Sherifi, 27, was sentenced in January to 45 years in prison for conspiring to provide material support to terrorism and conspiring to carry out attacks overseas, two counts of firearms possession and conspiring to kill federal officers or employees.
A warrant was issued for his arrest Tuesday related to the new charges.
