US citizen who joined ISIS in Syria sentenced to 10 years in prison
A naturalised US citizen who pleaded guilty to receiving military training from ISIS was sentenced on Monday to 10 years in federal prison.
, 49, engaged in at least one battle against US-led forces after he entered Syria in 2015, according to prosecutors.
US District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington imposed Sylejmani's prison sentence followed by a lifetime of supervised release.
Sylejmani, who was born in Kosovo and moved to Chicago about 25 years ago, pleaded guilty last December to one count of receiving military training from a foreign terrorist organisation.
In November 2015, he and his family flew to Turkey and then crossed the border into Syria, where he began training with other ISIS recruits, according to prosecutors. They said he was injured in a battle with Syrian forces in June 2016 and was captured with his family in Baghouz, Syria, in February 2019.
"The conduct is far more than a single, impulsive act. He chose to jeopardise the safety of his family by bringing them to a war-torn country to join and take up arms for ISIS," prosecutors wrote.
Sylejmani's lawyers say he isn't a 'committed" extremist and doesn't espouse violence.
'He is guilt-ridden for his actions and the harm he has visited on his family, who remain detained in a refugee camp in Syria living under terrible conditions," his lawyers wrote. "He wishes only to complete his time and find his wife and children, so he can live an average law-abiding life with them.'
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