Al-Timimi was held in solitary confinement for more than fifteen years including over a decade under special administrative measures at the maximum security United States Penitentiary ADX Florence, Colorado.
In August 2020, the district court ordered his conditional release into home confinement pending appeal after concluding that his case raised substantial legal issues.
His mother, a mental health specialist with a doctorate in special education, initially taught at St. John's Child Development Center for intellectually disabled children.
[7] Viorst writes that Al-Timimi's parents were both practicing Muslims, but spoke English rather than Arabic at home and "did not push religious observance on the children.
"[7] At age fifteen, in 1978, Al-Timimi's parents moved the family to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for three years to expose them to their Arabic and Islamic heritage.
[8] In Saudi Arabia, Al-Timimi became influenced by Salafism, a reform branch of Sunni Islam that advocates strict adherence to the Quran and Sunna (the teachings of the Prophet).
[8][7] In 1981, Al-Timimi returned to the United States and enrolled in a premed program at The George Washington University, while spending much of his time networking with different groups in the local Muslim community.
"[7] Stating that he was "hungry for answers to the larger philosophical questions," Al-Timimi returned to Saudi Arabia in 1987, where he studied for a year at the Islamic University of Madinah and became a student of Abdul-Aziz bin Baz.
[7][8] Michael Sells who has investigated Al-Timimi's belief system has written, "It is Bin Baz’s understanding of Islam, in fact, that ... guides central assumptions within Timimi’s speeches."
"[13] At his parents' urging, Al-Timimi returned to the United States after a year of study and earned a second undergraduate degree in computer science from the University of Maryland.
An FBI assessment of Al-Timimi noted that "[d]espite (Al-Timimi's) early attachment to [Bin Baz], he was open to rational methods (bin Baz famously insisted the world was flat in a 1976 fatwa) and continued his pursuit of science, eventually defending his PhD dissertation at George Mason University in Virginia in computational biology.
[15] Al-Timimi, A., and Jamison, D.C (April 2004) “Knowledge Discovery in a Microarray Data Warehouse,” International Conference on Information Technology, IEEE, Las Vegas, NV.
[7][2] According to Umar Lee, Al-Timimi's lectures "became 'the place to be' for the youth of the masjids [mosques] throughout the D.C. area," who were attracted to the fact that "this was a man who was born and raised in America, spoke in clear English, and not only had a great knowledge of the dīn (religion) but was college educated, a cancer researcher, and a very serious intellectual.
"[8] In 1995, Al-Timimi led a five-person delegation from the Islamic Assembly of North America to the United Nations 4th World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, China.
As a scientific researcher, Al-Timimi worked for the United States Navy and at George Mason University where he held the rank of Assistant Professor.
[20] In a Tweet on August 18, 2020, CBS national security correspondent, Catherine Herridge argued that the entire case was motivated by the Awlaki visit to Al-Timimi's home.
[2] According to prosecutors, Al-Timimi told his followers at a private gathering on September 16, 2001, that he believed that the 9/11 attacks had been an omen that foreshadowed a looming end-of-times battle between Muslims and the West,[24] and that "the time had come for them to go abroad and join the mujaheddin engaged in violent jihad in Afghanistan.
[2] Judge Brinkema described the sentence as "very draconian,"[1] but said "I don't think any well-read person can doubt the truth that terrorist camps are a crucial part of the new terrorism that is perpetrated in the world today.
[He] pointed out that he had 'never owned or used a gun, never traveled to a military camp, never set foot in a country in which a war was taking place, never raised money for any violent organization.'
For his conviction to stand, he said: '[T]wo hundred and thirty years of America's tradition of protecting the individual from the tyrannies and whims of the sovereign will have come to an end.
[34] In 2006, Al-Timimi's attorneys also challenged his treatment by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, claiming that it had repeatedly moved him to new facilities to block him from meeting with his legal counsel.
[35] In September 2015, the Fourth Circuit again remanded the case, this time on the grounds that "the FBI withheld evidence of its 2002 investigation into the first American on the CIA's kill or capture list, Anwar al-Awlaki".
[5] On August 18, 2020, Judge Brinkema granted the motion and ordered Al-Timimi's conditional release from ADX and into home confinement while he pursues his appeal.