A federal jury has found 45-year-old Zimnako Salah of Phoenix, Arizona, guilty on multiple counts after he targeted Christian churches across three states with hoax bomb threats, motivated purely by anti-Christian hatred.
Following an 11-day trial, the jury returned its verdict Thursday, concluding Salah planted a backpack at a Christian church in Roseville, California, in an attempt to simulate a bomb threat.
The device, strapped to a church toilet, was intended to terrorize innocent congregants and obstruct their right to worship.
The jury found that Salah specifically targeted the church because of the Christian faith of its members—legally designating this act as a hate crime.
From September to November 2023, Salah visited four churches across Arizona, California, and Colorado. At two of those houses of worship, he successfully planted suspicious backpacks that caused widespread panic among congregants.
At the other two locations, security thankfully intervened before he could finish his sinister plans.
More disturbingly, this wasn’t just a hoax — it was preparation for something far worse. According to testimony at trial, Salah was also assembling the real thing: a bomb capable of fitting inside one of those backpacks.
An FBI bomb technician seized components for an improvised explosive device (IED) in Salah’s rented storage unit. It wasn’t just intimidation — it was groundwork for domestic terrorism.
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