ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Abdirizak Jaji Raghe Wehelie, 66, of Burke, Virginia, is behind bars after being indicted on federal charges of obstruction and making false statements — allegations that cut deep into the integrity of an active terrorism investigation. The arrest, carried out Saturday night, targets a man who once held top-level access as a linguist contractor for the FBI.
Court documents reveal Wehelie worked on a high-stakes terror probe, translating intercepted communications tied to a suspect referred to as Person A. But when Person A left a voicemail on Wehelie’s personal phone, the contractor allegedly tried to cover his tracks. Instead of disclosing the contact, he intentionally misidentified his own voice in the recording — a move federal investigators say was calculated to mislead the very agency that trusted him with classified work.
When FBI agents confronted Wehelie about the call, he didn’t come clean. Instead, prosecutors say he doubled down, feeding investigators a series of misleading and outright false statements. The breach is more than a procedural misstep — it’s a direct assault on the credibility of federal surveillance efforts, law enforcement sources say.
Wehelie is charged with obstruction of a federal investigation and making false statements to government officials. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. While federal sentences often fall below the maximum, a judge will weigh the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors before issuing a final judgment.
The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney James P. Gillis. The announcement was made by G. Zachary Terwilliger, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Nancy McNamara, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office — a trio signaling the gravity of the breach.
Wehelie is scheduled for his initial court appearance in Alexandria today at 10:00 a.m. The indictment, Case No. 1:17-CR-295-CMH, remains on file with the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia and is accessible via PACER. As with all federal cases, Wehelie is presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
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Key Facts
- State: Virginia
- Agency: DOJ USAO
- Category: Public Corruption
- Source: Official Source ↗
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