Feeding Our Future: lead defendants back in court

In what may be a first for the Feeding Our Future case, eleven (11) defendants were inside the same courtroom at the same time this morning at the Federal building in downtown Minneapolis.

The occasion was the first edition of six scheduled monthly status conferences leading up the February 2025 trial of the members of the Safari Restaurant group in the scandal. These are the lead defendants in the case, Nos. 1 through 14, and include Aimee Bock (No. 1), former Feeding Our Future CEO. There are a total of 70 defendants charged, so far, in the larger Feeding Our Future scandal.

Not attending today’s session was Defendant No. 2, Abdikerm Eidleh, who is one of five fugitives from justice in the case. Also not present was No. 5, Ahmed Sharif Omar-Hashim, who has already pled guilty and been convicted.

The court has scheduled a window from February until May, 2025, to conduct three trials of the remaining 12 Safari defendants, in groups of four at a time.

Attending via telephone this morning was No. 14, Abdirahman Ahmed, who now resides in Columbus, Ohio.

The session began this morning with only 10 defendants in the room. No. 6, Abdi Nur Salah was missing, his whereabouts unknown. You may recall that Mr. Salah is the former policy aide to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey.

Mr. Salah finally arrived about a half hour late, attributing his tardiness to a “family emergency.” The judge’s response was “text your lawyer next time.” The judge admonished Salah and reminded all twelve defendants that attendance was mandatory. The judge warned that the next instance would prompt him to dispatch law enforcement to corral the absent defendant(s).

Besides Bock, the only other woman in this batch of defendants is Hamdi Omar (No. 12, no relation to Ilhan Omar). This Omar is the youngest of the Safari batch of defendants. Hamdi’s name came up in the previous Feeding Our Future trial in connection with a defense witness.

The next courtroom appearance for the group is scheduled for September 6, to hear miscellaneous pre-trial motions.

You will recall that I have documented extensively (here and here) the connections between incumbent U.S. Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (DFL-Minneapolis) and figures linked to Safari Restaurant.

Omar herself was making news last night, celebrating her 2024 primary election victory.

Readers will recall that Omar celebrated her 2018 August primary victory at Safari Restaurant. Alas, that venue was not available for last night’s festivities as it has been permanently closed. Safari was formerly owned by defendants Salim Said (No. 3) and Abdulkadir Salah (No. 4). Instead, this year’s party was held at a different Minneapolis restaurant.

In the 2022 election cycle, Omar received maximum campaign donations of $2,700 each from Abdihakim Ahmed (No. 7) and Ahmed Ghedi (No. 13).

The news coming out of her 2024 victory party centers on Omar’s reference to her political opponents as “literal Nazis.” But I’m more interested in the event’s attendees.

It appears that Omar had a celebrity guest at last night’s victory party. At the victory party, Omar gave interviews to reporters, including local Somali-language correspondents. A TikTok account under the handle @guhaadhashi posted a video of one such encounter.

Here’s a screenshot of that video:

This TikTok account appears to belong to Guhaad Hashi Said, Defendant No. 27 in the Feeding Our Future case. You may recall that in prior election campaigns, Guhaad served as a campaign volunteer for Omar,

Back in 2020, the website PowerLine described Guhaad as “Ilhan Omar’s enforcer.”

Fast forward to last night. Here are two images from the Omar 2024 victory party,

On the left, the man circled at Omar’s party is believed to be Guhaad. Omar herself appears in this picture. On the right is a selfie of Guhaad, in a screenshot taken from his TikTok video linked to above.

A Facebook page under the name Guhad Hashi is also celebrating Omar’s victory. Guhaad himself briefly ran for public office back in 2018. He held his own campaign event at, you guessed it, Safari Restaurant.

After last night, Omar is advancing to the general election in November. Guhaad Hashi Said is preparing for his courtroom trial in the Feeding Our Future case, scheduled to begin in October 2025. Guhaad’s next in-court appearance is scheduled for Sept. 10, 2024.

In other Feeding Our Future news, yesterday, Defendant No. 68, Fadumo Yusuf, made her first court appearance in Federal court in St. Paul. With the help of a court-provided language interpreter, she was formally arraigned in the case. The trial date for Yusuf and her six co-defendants has yet to be set.