Illinois man jailed for trying to join Daesh

A would-be Daesh recruit who worked in a Chicago-area hardware store was sentenced on Friday to more than three years in prison for seeking to join the militant group, federal prosecutors said. 
In exchange for a more lenient sentence than he might otherwise have faced if tried and convicted, Mohammed Hamzah Khan, 21, pleaded guilty last year to a charge of attempting to provide material support, namely himself, to a terrorist organization.
 Khan’s lawyer said at the time of the plea that his client had been brainwashed by online propaganda.
 In addition to a 40-month federal prison term, Khan will serve 20 years of supervised release once freed from custody, US District Judge John Tharp Jr. ruled during the sentencing in a Chicago courtroom.
 Khan must also undergo mental health treatment, attend violent-extremism counseling and comply with a computer-monitoring program, the Justice Department said in a statement.
 Khan was 19 when arrested in October 2014 at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport as he was about to board a flight to the Middle East with his siblings, then 17 and 16 years old, according to the Justice Department. He has been detained in federal custody since then.
 His two siblings were not charged. Standing in orange jail garb — his mother and father on a nearby spectator’s bench — Khan showed little emotion during Friday’s sentencing hearing in Chicago. 
 Defendants typically appeal for leniency, but when Tharp asked whether he wanted to speak, Khan answered: “I don’t wish to make any statement right now.”
 Defense lawyer Thomas Durkin had argued that individuals such as Khan should not be written off without a second chance for succumbing to adept Daesh propagandists who wooed them over the internet.
 “Do we give in to the fear that we cannot trust that this kid will ever change?” Durkin said. “I think he deserves a chance.”
 Agents detained Khan with two younger siblings as they tried to board a plane at O’Hare International Airport. Prosecutors say Khan helped indoctrinate his brother and sister, who also aspired to live in Daesh, though they were never charged. Khan left a letter before leaving for O’Hare expressing anger over US-backed bombing of Daesh.
 Khan’s mother, Zarine Khan, told reporters last year that Daesh had brainwashed her son. And she added about Daesh: “Leave our children alone!”
 Tharp said he couldn’t accept that Khan’s hope was to get a non-military job in Syria, saying the Daesh would surely press any young man into fighting.
 “I don’t believe for a second ... that you would go to Syria and work as a chef,” he said.
Defense attorneys argued Khan now grasped that his ideas about Daesh were “unrealistic” and that he no longer glorified its trademark brutality.
 Before adjourning, the judge contrasted the image of brutal executions in Daesh-controlled territory against Khan’s treatment in Chicago federal court.
 “Instead of public beheading, you’ve been given a public ... proceeding,” Tharp said. “The enemy government has not tried to kill you. 
 It has tried to help you.” Earlier this week, nine Somali-American men from Minnesota were sentenced for trying to join or assist Daesh.

Source: Arab News