Translator charged after his voice was intercepted on calls

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Federal authorities have charged a former FBI translator with making false statements after they say he altered transcripts of a message left on his own voicemail by a terrorism suspect.

Abdirizak Jaji Raghe Wehelie, 66, of Burke, Virginia, was arrested Saturday at an airport after returning to the U.S. on an international fight, according to Josh Stueve, a spokesman for the US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.

The former contract translator for the bureau faces an initial appearance Monday afternoon in federal court in Alexandria on seven counts of making false statements as well as one count of obstructing a federal investigation.

An indictment unsealed Monday states that Wehelie worked as a contractor for the FBI from 2012 to 2015. In December 2012, a man targeted by the FBI in an investigation connected to the Al-Shabab terrorist group in Somalia called and left a voicemail message for Wehelie.

The call was intercepted under court-ordered surveillance, and Wehelie was tasked the next day with translating the call. He marked himself down as “unidentified male” even though the voicemail message on Wehelie’s cellphone identified him as “Abdirizak Wehelie.”

The FBI questioned Wehelie about his actions in 2016. At the time, according to the indictment, Wehelie admitted that he should not have identified himself as an “unidentified male” on that translation. He also told FBI agents that he had never actually had a phone conversation with the person who called him and that he didn’t know the person very well. But a subsequent FBI investigation revealed that the two had nearly 180 phone contacts from 2010 to 2017.

The FBI employed Wehelie as a contractor even though his adult children had been placed on the no-fly list and denied re-entry to the U.S. for several weeks in 2010.

Yahya and Yusuf Wehelie were the subject of international news coverage in the summer of 2010 when they said they were unfairly placed on the no-fly list after travelling to Yemen to learn Arabic. After a delay of several weeks and pressure from Muslim civil rights groups, the brothers were allowed to return to the U.S. later that summer.

In 2017, Yusuf Wehelie was sentenced to 10 years in prison for illegally transporting high-powered weapons in a case where he spoke with an undercover witness about his desire to shoot up a military recruitment centre on behalf of the Islamic State group.

An FBI spokesman declined to comment Monday.

Court records do not yet list an attorney for Wehelie.