Yassin M. Aref

Who is Yassin M. Aref?

Yassin M. Aref is a resident of Albany, New York, who was arrested by Federal authorities in August 2004 as part of a counter-terrorism sting operation, convicted in October 2006 of conspiring to aid a terrorist group and provide support for a weapon of mass destruction, as well as money-laundering and supporting a foreign terrorist organization, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2007. In July 2008 the appellate court upheld the convictions, rejecting all of the defense's arguments.

Aref wrote a memoir, Son of Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect.