The prosecution in the trial of Mirsad Ramic began presenting evidence of its allegations that he conspired with two former Western Kentucky University students to join and fight for the terror group ISIS.

Ramic, 34, of Bowling Green, is on trial in U.S. District Court on charges of providing material support and resources to ISIS, conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and receiving military-type training from a designated terrorist organization.

Ramic, a Bosnian national with dual American citizenship, is alleged to have conspired with two Saudi nationals, Abdulah Mohamed Alnwfal and Khalaf Fahad Alkhalaf, to travel from the U.S. to Syria in 2014 to join ISIS.

A total of three witnesses were called Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning, including one who testified under a pseudonym in a closed courtroom, who offered testimony attempting to establish the connection among the three men.

The witness who testified pseudonymously on Wednesday is one of a number of prosecution witnesses allowed to testify without revealing their real names to protect their personal safety or ongoing undercover investigations.

Going by “Omar Ali,” the witness said he was a former adviser for Western Kentucky University’s Saudi Student Club and got to know Alkhalaf and Alnwfal when they were club members studying at WKU.

Ali testified that he visited Alkhalaf’s apartment on multiple occasions and said that he noticed a gradual change in his appearance and that he began espousing rhetoric endorsing a more radical adherence to Islam.

“He said ‘studying chemistry is not getting me to heaven,’ ” Ali said, recalling one meeting with Alkhalaf, describing him as a charismatic figure. “At some point at the house, he said we need to tell the world about the (Saudi) king, how he’s not protecting Islam and you as a club should do that with me.”

Ali testified that he remembered Alkhalaf obtaining a BB gun and learning that he was using it for “training” by shooting rabbits and birds with it, Ali saying that he recalled Alkhalaf being picked up and dropped off by Ramic on those occasions.

Ali said he saw Alkhalaf and Alnwfal, who were neighbors, at a local mosque and that Ramic joined them at some point to learn Arabic with them and study the Koran.

The three men would keep to themselves in a corner of the mosque, Ali recalled.

“I felt I wasn’t welcome,” Ali said.

Ali recalled seeing Alkhalaf, Alnwfal and Ramic at another mosque after they left the first mosque when Alkhalaf spoke out at a prayer meeting and threatened the imam there.

By spring of 2014, Alkhalaf was no longer attending classes, and Ali learned that he had left the country later that year after seeing posts on social media accounts associated with Alkhalaf showing him in different parts of the world.

At one point on one of Alkhalaf’s accounts, there was a picture of Ramic standing by a tank with an ISIS flag, Ali said.

Ali said he reached out to the FBI to report what he knew, and he became a paid informant, receiving around $20,000 in the 10 years since from the bureau for credible information.

Ali said that a post to the Saudi Student Club Facebook page from 2014 saying that members attending an Eid holiday festival were infidels whose deaths would be justified was made by an account belonging to Alkhalaf, who Ali said remained active on Facebook and X, formerly Twitter.

Questioned by Ramic’s attorney, Scott Wendelsdorf, Ali said that he did not see Ramic at Alkhalaf’s home when he visited and that he did not personally receive any correspondence, online or otherwise, from Ramic.

Also testifying Wednesday morning was Burcu Vovchok of Turkish Airlines, who explained to jurors that Alkhalaf, Alnwfal and Ramic each flew from Nashville on June 3, 2014, to Istanbul, Turkey, with Ramic’s plane stopping over in Houston and Alkhalaf and Alnwfal’s flight stopping over in Washington, D.C.

Vovchok said that Ramic’s ticket showed that his flight was to continue to Sarajevo, Bosnia, but he was not present for that leg of the flight and that he paid cash to a travel agent for a plane ticket to Gaziantep, Turkey, as did Alkhalaf and Alnwfal, whose flight from the U.S. was ultimately destined for Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Prosecutors allege that the three men crossed the border at Gaziantep into Syria.

FBI Special Agent Eric Stroud on Tuesday went over subpoenaed bank records documenting the three men’s purchases of U.S. plane tickets in 2014.

Attorneys make opening statementsAttorney Christopher Tieke of the U.S. Department of Justice delivered an opening statement Tuesday outlining the prosecution’s theory of Ramic’s radicalization, which Tieke said manifested itself through attempted trips to Yemen and Saudi Arabia before he traveled to Syria in 2014.

Tieke said Ramic’s claims that he went there to attend Islamic schools were a ruse concealing more nefarious aims and that Ramic’s name appears on ISIS processing forms from 2014 showing that he entered Syria and signed on as a fighter there for ISIS.

One witness for the prosecution will claim to have trained with Ramic in Syria and to have taken part in reconnaissance missions in anticipation of a battle for the Syrian city of Kobane, Tieke said.

That witness will claim to have been part of a support group in the battle, aiding a group that contained Ramic, Tieke said.

Wendelsdorf cautioned jurors during his opening statement to evaluate the credibility of the testimony coming from cooperating witnesses who have an interest in divulging information in exchange for reduced penalties in their own criminal cases, and from confidential sources who may be unable to attest to the origins of documents they came across that are now evidence.

“The United States has a lot of evidence, but the quality is not worthy of an American courtroom,” Wendelsdorf said.

During his opening statement, Wendelsdorf related to jurors that Ramic spent his childhood years as a refugee, pushed with his family out of Bosnia by Serbian fighters only to rediscover his Muslim faith after being resettled in the U.S.

Ramic’s attempts to travel to Yemen and Saudi Arabia raised the attention of U.S. law enforcement, which Wendelsdorf said subjected Ramic to a “relentless campaign of harassment, surveillance and intimidation.”

Wendelsdorf said Ramic was motivated to leave for Syria to live in a culture that was more closely aligned with his Muslim faith, rather than to engage in a jihad against Americans, but he became disillusioned after the time he spent there did not align with what was promised to him.

“ISIS wanted to attract as many Muslims as it could to come and join its caliphate,” Wendelsdorf said. “ISIS had a violent arm, but ISIS also portrayed itself as the Islamic paradise.”