Court Case

USA v. Hassan, Tnuza Jamal

February 2018 (Updated August 26, 2020)
St. Paul, MN
Al Qaida, Taliban, Al Shabaab

[DMN] Tnuza Jamal Hassan, a former student at St. Catherine University (SCU) in St. Paul, Minnesota, attempted to provide material support to al-Qaida. In a September 2017 an interview with FBI Agents, Hassan was asked whether she authored and delivered a letter to two fellow students at SCU in March 2017. The letter sought to encourage fellow students to "join the jihad in fighting" and to "[j]oin Al Qaeda, Taliban, or Al Shabaab." Hassan knowingly made a false statement to FBI Agents when she stated she did not write the letter and did not know who wrote the letter. She also said she did not know how the letter came to be delivered to her fellow students. In January 2018, Hassan started several fires on the campus of SCU, including in St. Mary Hall, which she maliciously damaged. The fires set by Hassan caused the St. Paul Fire Department to respond to SCU. In August 2020, Hassan pled guilty.

Case Updates

2020-08-26 | Minneapolis Woman Pleads Guilty To Attempting To Provide Material Support To al-Qa'ida

Tnuza Jamal Hassan pled guilty to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization (al-Qa'ida). According to the defendant's guilty plea and documents filed in court, in March of 2017, while a freshman student at St. Catherine University (SCU), Hassan drafted a letter encouraging others to join al-Qa'ida (AQ), and anonymously delivered the letter to two other students at SCU for the purpose of recruiting those individuals to join AQ. In September 2017, Hassan purchased a round-trip airline ticket from Minneapolis to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and purchased a second round-trip ticket from Dubai to Kabul, Afghanistan. She later admitted that she planned to travel from Dubai to Kabul where she hoped to join AQ and that she had no intentions of returning to the United States. In September 2017, Hassan boarded a flight and traveled from MSP to Dubai, but was prevented from traveling to Kabul because she failed to secure a travel visa allowing her to enter the country. In January 2018, Hassan attempted to set several fires on the SCU campus. She admitted that she attempted to burn SCU buildings as a retaliatory act against the United States for its opposition to AQ in Afghanistan.

Case Documents