Jury selection has begun for the trial of the white nationalist terrorist charged as the mastermind of the 2017 bombing of a mosque in suburban Minneapolis, ABC News reports.
Michael Hari of Clarence, Minnesota, is charged with multiple civil rights and hate crimes after a white national group he led, called the White Rabbits, detonated a pipe bomb of Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center in Bloomington.
Right-wing media and commentators speculated that the bombing was a “false flag” operation designed to generate sympathy for Muslims, who were being targeted by President Trump through a Muslim ban at the time.
The charges outline a plan by Hari and his co-conspirators, Michael McWhorter and Joe Morris, to bomb the mosque. While about a dozen men were in the mosque, the trio drove up to the mosque and threw a pipe bomb through a window. No one was hurt in the blast.
The specific charges each man faces are damaging property because of its religious character, forcibly obstructing the free exercise of religious beliefs, conspiracy to commit felonies with fire and explosives, using a destructive device in a crime of violence, and possessing an unregistered destructive device. Hari’s trial is expected to take three weeks.