Daniel Maldonado

Who is Daniel Maldonado?

Daniel Maldonado, aka his adopted Muslim name Daniel Aljughaifi, is a U.S. citizen who in February 2007 became the first to face charges in federal court for training with Al-Shabaab, a terrorist organization in Somalia.

Maldonado was born in Pelham, New Hampshire. After dropping out of high school before his junior year, in 2000 he converted to fundamentalist Islam and adopted the Arab surname of Aljughaifi. By 2005 he had married and was living in Houston, Texas with his wife and children; they moved that year to Cairo, Egypt. The following year, they went to Somalia, where he joined Al-Shabaab with another American Muslim, Omar Hammami. The group is classified by United States law enforcement as a terrorist organization.

After being captured by Kenyan forces in January 2007, Maldonado was turned over to United States officials and brought back to the US by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was charged in a US District Court in February 2007 in Houston, Texas for receiving military training from a terrorist organization. In April 2007, Maldonado pleaded guilty to the charges.