Three foreign nationals have been convicted or sentenced in U.S. courts over the last two days for attempting to help terrorists.
On Thursday, Agron Hasbajrami of Albania, who lives in New York, was sentenced to 16 years in prison for trying to conspire and aid a jihadist insurgent group. On Wednesday, Lawal Olaniyi Babafemi of Nigeria was sentenced to 22 years for conspiring with and assisting al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Also on Wednesday, Fazliddin Kurbanov, a Uzbekistan citizen living in Idaho, was found guilty of attempting to conspire and help a foreign terrorist organization.
Hasbajrami, 31, who tried to travel to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan in 2011 to help a radical Islamic group there, will be deported after serving his sentence.
Babafemi, 35, twice went from Nigeria to Yemen to meet with AQAP leaders linked to “lone-wolf” plots to strike on U.S. soil. He also worked with the U.S. citizen who founded AQAP’s “Inspire,” its English, online magazine.
Babafemi worked on the terrorist group’s social media efforts, wrote rap lyrics aimed at inspiring young Westerners to join their cause, and tried to recruit fellow Nigerians to AQAP.
“This case is especially important as it relates to efforts to prosecute individuals who both engage in physical violence themselves and who create and disseminate violent terrorist propaganda worldwide in an effort to convince others to do so,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly T. Currie of the Eastern District of New York.
Kurbanov, 33, was found not guilty of two other charges during a 20-day trial. His conviction was for obtaining bomb-making material on behalf of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which hoped to launch an attack in the U.S., according to a Justice Department statement.
It took authorities more than three years to build the case and win conviction of Kurbanov, who said he wanted to target military bases, specifically West Point. He faces 15 years in prison at his Nov. 10 sentencing and a separate proceeding in Utah, where he is accused of teaching bomb making.
