Appeals court reverses convictions in kidnapping and terrorism case involving 3-year-old boy's death

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A federal appeals court has vacated kidnapping convictions in a case involving the death of a 3-year-old boy who went missing from Georgia in 2017 and later turned up dead at a squalid compound in New Mexico.The boy’s father and other family members were sentenced to life in prison in 2024 after jurors convicted them in what prosecutors described as a “sick end-of-times scheme.”A panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a decision issued Tuesday that there was no evidence of a federal kidnapping crime when the family took the boy, noting that no court order or state law made it illegal for Siraj Ibn Wahhaj to take his son.The group already was living in New Mexico when a Georgia juvenile court issued a pickup order for the boy after his mother petitioned for emergency custody. The appellate panel took issue with jury instructions that implied the mother's lack of consent could satisfy the unlawfulness element under the federal kidnapping statute