A prosecutor told a federal judge this morning that Uzbek refugee Jamshid Muhtorov admitted he knew the Islamic Jihad Union was a combat organization that fights NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Muhtorov, a 35-year-old Aurora resident charged with providing material support to IJU, a designated foreign terrorist organization, appeared in court for a detention hearing so a judge could decide whether to grant him bond while he awaits trial.

On Jan. 21, Muhtorov was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on his way to Istanbul, Turkey after agents tracked his emails and phone calls for months after he made contact with the administrator of a pro-IJU website.

The FBI found about $2,800 in cash, two shrink-wrapped iPhones, an iPad and a GPS device with him upon his arrest.

“At a later date I will make an argument why he had those devices,” assistant U.S. attorney Greg Holloway said.

During an hour and a half interview with agents, Muhtorov denied he was involved in terrorism.

“He asked how could he support terrorism when he could barely provide support for him and his family,” Holloway said. “He told the agents he thought it was a big mistake.”

But Holloway says he has a witness who claims Muhtorov, a former human rights defender in Uzbekistan, became radicalized and had an allegiance to global jihad.

Holloway said Muhtorov quit his job with a trucking company, said goodbye to his wife and two children and purchased a one-way airplane ticket to give his life to the cause.

The prosecutor described Muhtorov as a former human rights activist who might have been disappointed in his life as a refugee in the U.S.

“He is an educated man and the only jobs he could get were manual labor jobs and his wife had to work to help support the family,” Holloway said. “He was living in a crappy apartment and having to move because of bed bugs.You can see an escalation of frustration and communication of that frustration in the (documents).”

Holloway also claims to have a witness who said Muhtorov was looking for like-minded individuals who had an extreme view of Islam.

The witness told the FBI that Muhtorov’s teachers in regard to the proper practice of Islam were Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, a Yememi-American cleric killed last year in a CIA drone strike.

But when Muhtorov’s defense lawyer, Brian Leedy tried to question FBI Special Agent Donald Hale about the identity of their witness, Holloway interrupted and said Hale could not answer because the information is classified.

Prosecutors also did not say whether a specific terrorist act or plan was underway involving Muhtorov. They have only conceded no attack was planned on U.S. soil.

In 2005, the IJU was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State and conducted attacks on coalition forces overseas and has links to al-Qaeda.

But the IJU is also a group that fought the dictator of Muhtorov’s home country of Uzbekistan where his sister remains jailed on a trumped up murder charge and where he was subjected to political persecution. Muhtorov’s brother also left the country in 2009 as a refugee and is living in Kazakhstan.

Leedy says Muhtorov was bickering with his wife, Nargiza, asking her to choose a life with him or her mother and after that, he made one-way travel arrangements toward Asia. His intentions were to visit his extended family, Leedy said.

Muhtorov was carrying cash because it is the easiest currency to travel with, his lawyer continued. He also purchased a one-way ticket because making arrangements to travel from that part of the world are difficult to plan in a round-trip flight, Leedy said.

“His travel plans were not run of the mill,” Leedy said. “It was complicated.”

Leedy asked U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty to release his client on bond and place him on GPS monitoring if he was concerned about him leaving the country.

Hegarty was still considering the motion for release this afternoon. But the judge indicated he was suspicious of Muhtorov’s motives for traveling abroad.

“A person who has a family, a wife and two small children, who quits his job and buys a one way ticket to Turkey and carries a significant amount of cash with him – that is a concern to me,” Hegarty said.

Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com