A man of Kenyan origin was sent to federal prison in the United States (US) on August 12 over conspiracy to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization.
The accused person was born in Kenya before moving to the US where he became a citizen by naturalization.
The 25-year-old man was sentenced to eight years and two months in a federal prison while his brother was given six and a half years.
The duo was sentenced by US District Judge Robert Jonker in Grand Rapids and ordered to spend another 10 years on supervised release when they end their prison terms.
His brother told investigators he planned to travel to Somalia to join the Islamic State of Iraq and -al-Sham, a foreign terrorist organization, so that “I would have to do an attack in the US.”
The two, together with their cousin, were tracked after they shared a post on social media indicating their plans to join the militia in Somalia. They were nabbed by FBI agents at the airport on January 21, 2019.
Defense attorneys contended that the three defendants were baited by undercover FBI agents posing as ISIS operatives.
“Nonetheless, the Defendant chose to devote himself to a brutally violent terrorist group that his dedicated to murdering US citizens and attacking US interests here and abroad,” the attorney wrote.
He added: “The FBI’s investigative efforts prevented all three defendants from joining ISIS and furthering its deadly and destructive mission. The defendant was devoted to ISIS’s violent ideology.”
The government wanted the trio slapped with a harsher penalty arguing that the accused persons are capable of resuming support for ISIS and radical Islamic theology when their prison terms end.
The Kenyan man went to the US at age of 8. He lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Omaha, Nebraska, then Lansing. Before that, he spent time in a refugee camp in Pakistan.
“It would be difficult for anyone who was born and raised here to appreciate how difficult his youth must have been,” his attorney wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
He said his client’s life “took a sharp turn” when he got married and had a child.
