Ibraheem Ahmed al Bayati, 19, admitted to interrupting a class to threaten to bomb the university during an online lecture being taught via Zoom on Wednesday. Bayati told the class that he would bomb the university and praised the Islamic State, saying, "Islamic State will remain."
"What does any of this have to do with the fact that UH is about to get bombed in a few days?" Bayati told the class, according to court documents.
The FBI tracked Bayati down by tracing his IP address to the home of one of his relatives on Friday. Bayati admitted to interrupting the class and said that he meant the incident to be a joke. He showed the officers a text message from a friend that had a link to the Zoom class with a message that said: "Say some Arabic shit and leave lmaooooo."
Authorities do not believe that Bayati was acting on a one-off joke. They said they found other text messages on his phone in which he discussed recruiting for ISIS.
Bayati was charged with two counts for making the threat against the university. The charges carry a maximum prison sentence of 15 years. His first court appearance is on Tuesday.
