Brooklyn man sentenced to 15 years prison over Daesh support

US Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, US. (File photo by AFP)

NEW YORK: A Brooklyn man was sentenced on Friday to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Daesh.
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 27, was sentenced by US District Judge William Kuntz in the federal court in Brooklyn.
The defendant, an Uzbekistan citizen who once chopped salad at a Brooklyn gyro shop, was one of six people charged in the same case with plotting to aid Daesh, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization.
Prosecutors sought a 15-year prison term, the maximum possible. Lawyers for Juraboev sought no more than five years, calling him an “unsophisticated, gullible, and lonely young man” who reached “wrong conclusions” about Islam and Daesh.
Michael Weil, a federal public defender representing Juraboev, declined to comment after the sentencing.
Authorities said Juraboev had in August 2014 posted an online threat to kill then-US President Barack Obama on behalf of Daesh, and spoke of planting a bomb on Coney Island if the group ordered it.
Juraboev was arrested in February 2015, after buying a plane ticket to fly the next month to Istanbul, Turkey, intending to then travel to Syria to join Daesh, authorities said.
Two co-defendants, Akhror Saidakhmetov and Abror Habibov, pleaded guilty this year, and charges are still pending against co-defendants Dilkhayot Kasimov, Azizjon Rakhmatov and Akmal Zakirov, court records show. Saidakhmetov faces a Dec. 13 sentencing.
Saidakhmetov was also arrested in February 2015, as he was boarding a plane to Istanbul, authorities said.
The arrests of Juraboev and Saidakhmetov followed roughly five months of interactions between the men and a paid informant posing as being ideologically sympathetic.
Other defendants were charged with conspiring to pay Juraboev’s and Saidakhmetov’s travel expenses.
Another Uzbekistan citizen, Dilshod Khusanov, was in August charged in a separate case with having discussed with Zakirov providing funds for Saidakhmetov’s trip, and helping others join Daesh or Al-Nusrah Front, another militant group.
More than 100 people have faced US charges in connection with Daesh since 2014.