Yassin M. Aref is religious scholar, writer, and poet of Kurdish background who was the central figure of a controversial sting operation leading to years of incarceration in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A resident of Albany, New York, Aref was arrested by Federal authorities in August 2004 as part of a counter-terrorism sting operation, convicted in October 2006 of conspiring to aid a terrorist group and provide support for a weapon of mass destruction, as well as money-laundering and supporting a foreign terrorist organization, Jaish-e-Mohammed, and sentenced to 15 years in prison in March 2007. In July 2008, the appellate court upheld the convictions, rejecting all of the defense's arguments. The decision caused outrage amongst the local community, as supporters maintained the position that he was being persecuted. After finishing his 15-year prison sentence in October, 2018, Aref was deported to Iraqi Kurdistan in June, 2019. Aref wrote a memoir, Son of Mountains: My Life as a Kurd and a Terror Suspect (2008). Background US forces found Aref's name, address, and phone number in a notebook in a bombed-out Iraqi encampment in 2003. The information was classified, and the defense, despite defense counsel having received security clearances, was provided with almost no information about the notebook. Originally the government claimed that the notebook entry said "commander" next to Aref's name; however, when the judge asked the government to provide the notebook page, the government admitted that there had been a "mistranslation" and the word in question was "kak," which means "brother," not "commander," and is a common Kurdish term of respect. Aref is from (Iraqi Kurdistan), and his grandfather was a famous imam; Aref was already known and respected in the area. There was no way to know what group was bombed by US forces at the encampment; at times, groups such as the Kurdistan Justice Group, run by Ali Bapir, were bombed by the US, even though they did not oppose US forces. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) claimed that Aref is tied to Mullah Krekar, the founder of Ansar al-Islam. When Aref left Iraq as a refugee in 1994, he lived in Syria for 5 years. During that time he was approved by the UN as a refugee to be sent to a third country, which ended up being the US. While in Syria, Aref worked first as a gardener for a rich businessman, and then