Some suspects in New Mexico compound death released

Citing a failure by prosecutors to follow procedure, a judge on Wednesday dismissed charges against three defendants in the case of a toddler found dead on a squalid New Mexico compound. Lucas Morton, Subhannah Wahhaj, and Hujrah Wahhaj faced charges of child neglect. They and two other adults lived with numerous children on the compound near the Colorado border. Judge Jeff McElroy said Wednesday he dismissed the charges because Taos District Attorney Donald Gallegos failed to schedule a preliminary hearing within 10 days of the three suspects’ arrest. Prosecutors had pressed to keep the suspects in jail and planned to present new evidence of an anti-government plot and talk of jihad and martyrdom among some members of the extended Muslim family.

Also on Wednesday, the dead boy’s father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, and Jany Leveille pleaded not guilty to additional child abuse charges in the boy’s death. Authorities say the father and Leveille denied then-3-year-old Abdul-ghani Wahhaj proper medicine and healthcare before he died in December 2017 during a religious ritual aimed at casting out demonic spirits. They remain in jail, while the other three suspects have been released.