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A jury will now deliberate the fate of the first man to go to trial in the FBI’s investigation into al-Shabab recruitment in Minneapolis.

The court heard closing statements Wednesday in the trial of Mahamud Said Omar, a Minneapolis man charged with helping local men travel to Somalia to join the terrorist group.

After introducing its key witness Monday, the U.S. government has laid out over nine days almost its entire case against a Minneapolis man charged with helping other local men return to Somalia to join terrorist group al-Shabab.

Kiann VanDenover, with the Minneapolis FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, began her testimony Monday.

A federal court heard the continued testimony of a Plymouth, Minn., man Wednesday in the trial of a local man charged with assisting Somali terrorist group al-Shabab.

Kamal Said Hassan is the prosecution’s 13th witness in the case against Mahamud Said Omar.

Omar is charged with helping a group of men travel to Somalia in November 2008 to fight Ethiopian forces. He’s the first man to go to trial of the 18 men charged in the FBI’s investigation. Omar faces five charges: three counts of conspiracy and two counts of aiding terrorists.

Two expert witnesses and two former al-Shabab members testified Tuesday in the trial of a Minneapolis man on the stand for aiding terrorism group al-Shabab.

Mahamud Said Omar is charged with helping a group of men travel to Somalia in November 2008 to join al-Shabab. The group includes two former University of Minnesota students; both are presumed dead.

Altogether, more than 20 men have left Minneapolis for Somalia since 2007. Of 18 men charged in the FBI’s investigation, Omar is the only one to go to trial so far.

Two former al-Shabab members testified in the Omar trial Thursday and Friday about their travel to Somalia to join the terrorist organization.

The men took the stand on behalf of the U.S. government in its trial against Mahamud Said Omar, who’s accused of helping a group of Minneapolis men travel to Somalia to join al-Shabab. The witnesses left Minneapolis in the first wave of departures in late 2007.

A jury heard from family members of al-Shabab fighters Wednesday in the trial of a man accused of helping Minneapolis men return to their native Somalia to fight with the terrorist organization.

The government spent Wednesday building the case that the men who left for Somalia didn’t have ample resources to make the trip on their own. It alleges Mahamud Said Omar organized and helped pay for the men to go to Somalia to fight.

The court heard emotional testimony from family members of three men who were allegedly recruited to fight in Somalia.

Summer break does not apply to engineers — at least the ones working with the University of Minnesota’s chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

This past summer, members of EWB-UMN traveled to Guatemala and Uganda to make clean water more accessible.

The group is part of the national organization Engineers Without Borders USA, which works to improve the quality of life around the world through engineering projects.