Jurors in a federal trial in Virginia began deliberating Tuesday after attorneys delivered closing arguments in the case of Mohammad Sharifullah, who is charged in connection with the suicide bombing at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate during the U.S. military’s 2021 evacuation from Afghanistan. The jury deliberated for about five hours before adjourning and is scheduled to resume Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
Sharifullah’s capture was highlighted by President Donald Trump during last year’s congressional joint session address, the report said. The bombing on Aug. 26, 2021 killed approximately 160 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members after a lone suicide bomber detonated an improvised explosive device near an airport entry point known as Abbey Gate.
At the close of the trial, defense attorney Lauren Rosen argued that prosecutors did not present evidence connecting Sharifullah to the attack beyond his own statements to FBI agents during hours of interrogation. Rosen told jurors that Sharifullah did not know much about what happened that day and said the government provided no explanation of how the attack unfolded beyond what investigators obtained from him, the report said.
Rosen said Sharifullah told FBI agents what he thought they wanted to hear. She pointed to the possibility that he made those statements because he was afraid of being tortured in Pakistani custody before being brought to the United States, according to the Associated Press account of her closing argument.
The prosecution, led by Justice Department prosecutor Ryan White, argued that Sharifullah played a crucial role in planning the Abbey Gate bombing and that he was involved in other attacks attributed to an Islamic State regional branch known as ISIS-K. White told the jury that Sharifullah viewed the killing as part of a routine, and the government also pointed to a connection between Sharifullah and the March 2024 Moscow concert hall attack that killed roughly 140 people.
White also said Sharifullah told a journalist he wanted to “catch and kill the crusaders” after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, the report said. Rosen countered by telling jurors they could not base a verdict on speculation, including her suggestion that militants from a Taliban offshoot could have been manning Abbey Gate and may have been involved in the attack.
The case hinges on competing interpretations of what Sharifullah said during interrogation and how it relates to the identities and roles behind the attack. The report said a review by U.S. Central Command found the Abbey Gate bomber was Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an Islamic State militant released from an Afghan prison by the Taliban, and that an FBI affidavit said Sharifullah recognized the alleged bomber as someone he had known while incarcerated.
The report also described testimony from a former Marine who told Congress he and others spotted two possible suspects behaving suspiciously in the hours before the bombing but did not get permission to act. Central Command’s review concluded that snipers had not seen the actual bomber and that the attack was not preventable, the report said.
Sharifullah, who did not testify during the weeklong trial, is charged with one count of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, the report said.
The Associated Press report also tied the prosecution’s broader context to political controversy around Afghanistan policy, noting that a prosecutor assigned to the Abbey Gate case was fired last year after a right-wing commentator publicly criticized him over his work during President Joe Biden’s administration. The report said Trump, during his most recent presidential campaign, repeatedly condemned Biden for what he described as the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal and blamed Biden for the Abbey Gate attack.