A northern Virginia man who is originally from Sudan was sentenced on Friday to 11 years in prison and a decade of supervised release for attempting to provide material support and resources to the Islamic State and making false statements to the FBI.
Mahmoud Amin Mohamed Elhassan of Woodbridge, Va., pleaded guilty on Oct. 24 to aiding and abetting his friend’s attempt to travel from the U.S. to Syria to join the terrorist group. Joseph Hassan Farrokh, a 29-year-old from Woodbridge, would travel overseas first and Elhassan, 26, would follow at a later date, according to a news release from the Justice Department.
The two men attempted to plan their trip to join the Islamic State by using a computer app they thought law enforcement did not monitor, prosecutors said. In mid-2015, they began exchanging digital messages about the two trips. They also tried to find someone from within the group that could help them with logistical issues in leaving the U.S. and joining the terrorists.
On Jan. 15, 2016, Elhassan drove Farrokh from his home in Woodbridge to an area in Richmond that was about a mile from the airport, prosecutors said. Farrokh then cabbed the rest of the distance to Richmond International Airport, but special agents of the FBI nabbed him after passing through security.
Later in the day, other agents approached Elhassan and asked him about Farrokh’s whereabouts, the Justice Department release said. Elhassan said his friend had flown out of Dulles Airport to California to attend a funeral. He also told falsehoods, the prosecutors said, by claiming Farrokh would return in two weeks and denying their support for the Islamic State.
Farrokh was sentenced last year to 102 months (eight and a half years) in prison.
