An Uzbek citizen has been sentenced to 15 years in prison by a U.S. court after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Islamic State (IS) militants.
Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, 27, was sentenced on October 27 by U.S. District Judge William Kuntz in the federal court in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.
The defendant was one of six people charged in the same case with plotting to aid the IS group, a U.S.-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 IS.
In August 2014, Juraboev posted an online threat to kill then-U.S. President Barack Obama on behalf of IS, and said he would plant a bomb in Brooklyn if the group ordered it, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
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 IS, the statement 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 December 13 sentencing.
Saidakhmetov was also arrested in February 2015 as he was boarding a plane to Istanbul, the authorities said.
