(CN) - Four people accused of abducting a three-year-old-boy and performing exorcisms on him until he died in the New Mexico high desert asked a 10th Circuit panel to vacate their life sentences because, among other things, the abduction was not legally kidnapping. 

"Just because somebody uses the term in its loose definition does not make it so," defense attorney Katayoun Donnelly told the three-judge panel in a Denver courtroom Thursday morning. "The government wants to keep Hujrah Wahhaj in prison for the rest of her life for consensually accompanying her brother who lawfully and voluntarily took his own son across state lines."

Siraj Wahhaj, his brother-in-law Lucas Morton, and Siraj Wahhaj's sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, took Siraj Wahhaj's son, Abdul-Ghani, from his wife in Atlanta, Georgia, and drove him to a makeshift compound in Taos County, New Mexico, at the orders of Jany Leveille, who told the group Abdul-Ghani was her son and had been possessed by evil spirits. There, they held 11 other boys ages one to 15, according to the Taos County Sheriff's Office. 

Some of the boys held at the compound testified in a 2023 trial that Siraj Wahhaj and others withheld his child's anti-seizure medication and performed "daily exorcisms" on him until he foamed at the mouth and died. They ditched his body in an underground tunnel.

Siraj Wahhaj was not charged with kidnapping or murder. But a jury convicted him of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to murder an officer of the United States for a plot to "wage Jihad" on the FBI and other law enforcement agencies that Siraj Wahhaj says was unrelated to his son's death. 

Representing Siraj Wahhaj, defense attorney Jacob Rasch-Chabot told the judges that evidence of Abdul-Ghani's abduction and death presented in the joint-trial prejudiced the jury against his client. 

"With all that evidence, no reasonable juror could dispassionately weigh the evidence to determine whether Mr. Wahhaj was guilty of a completely different crime," Rasch-Chabot said. 

The conspiracy to kill FBI agents came after a prophecy given by Leveille after Abdul-Ghani's death that he would resurrect as Jesus Christ and punish non-believers.

Because the trial judge did not sever Siraj Wahhaj's trial from the rest of the defendants, Rasch-Chabot said his conviction must be overturned. 

Federal prosecutor Tiffany Walters said the United States would have presented the same evidence at an individual trial anyway.

Walters argued that the conspiracy to kill FBI agents was "inextricably intertwined" with Abdul-Ghani's kidnapping because Siraj Wahhaj was aware before his son died that the FBI was looking for him. The trial court ruled that severing the case would likely result in two identical trials. 

Sisters Hujrah and Subhanah Wahhaj, both convicted of kidnapping resulting in a death, said their convictions must be overturned because a father cannot kidnap his own son without a court order revoking custody. Even if Siraj Wahhaj's wife didn't consent, the sisters couldn't have aided an abetting a legal action, Donelly argued for Hujrah Wahhaj.

U.S. Circuit Judge Nancy Moritz, a Barack Obama appointee, asked whether it would violate federal law for a parent to pay a third party to pick up their child against the other parent's consent. 

"Why not?" Donnelly asked. "We do it all the time with our nannies. We live in America. Every single working mom has someone who's going to grab their kid to take them to different places."

On rebuttal, Walters said the sisters' legal theory could have been true if Siraj Wahhaj didn't confine and torture his son after transporting him across state lines.

"The Georgia courts issued an arrest warrant which I think is good evidence that the Georgia courts thought what he did was unlawful," she said.

She admitted if the judges don't find there was an unlawful seizure, Hujrah Wahhaj's conviction must be overturned. 

Lucas Morton - who, like Siraj Mahhaj, represented himself at trial - was convicted of providing material support to terrorists' conspiracy to murder an officer of the United States and kidnapping resulting in a death. 

During trial, Morton and Siraj Mahhaj were not allowed to approach the bench in the presence of the jury, meaning their standby counsel had to represent them in bench conferences and report information back to the defendants. 

Representing Morton before the 10th Circuit, attorney Andrew Casey said Morton was irreversibly prejudiced by being prevented from participating in all 46 bench conferences across the three-week trial.

"That's a lot of times to excuse the jury and involve the defendant," U.S. Circuit Judge Carolyn McHugh, a Barack Obama appointee, told Casey.

Casey said the court could have used headsets and a white noise machine to converse with defendants at their table unheard by jurors. 

Walters said the defendants had the opportunity to object and didn't do so. She said Morton never identified a ruling that could have been different if he had participated  in the bench trial.

The panel, rounded out by U.S. Circuit Judge Gregory Phillips, a Barack Obama appointee, didn't indicate when it will rule.

Source: Courthouse News Service