Wannabe Queens terrorist denounces ISIS and gets 12 years behind bars

A Queens man who tried to sneak into Syria to join ISIS was sentenced to more than 12 years behind bars, after he denounced the terrorist group in front of a federal judge Tuesday.

Parveg Ahmed, 27, talked up the prospect of holy war online since at least 2014, and in 2017, he used the cover of a family trip to Saudi Arabia to travel to Syria and join up.

He and a co-conspirator, who prosecutors said he roped into his plan, were detained in Jordan and brought back to the U.S. to face terrorism charges.

“I just wanted to state out loud and in public how sorry I am for this crime,” Ahmed told Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Ann Donnelly. “Today I renounce ISIS and all forms of violent extremism.”

Donnelly sentenced Ahmed to 12 years and nine months behind bars, followed by 15 years supervised release. He has already spent five and a half years behind bars, with most of that time in the Metropolitan Detention Center.

His lawyer, Michael Schneider, said Ahmed suffered from depression and the belief that he was a failure in his teenage years, after struggling at Stuyvesant High School surrounded by students he thought were smarter than him.

From there, Ahmed was lured in by the terror group’s “sophisticated” propaganda videos, his lawyer said. “He was the exact target of that propaganda and he fell for it.” But the sight of real, up-close violence at MDC “was stomach-churning for him,” Schneider said.

Ahmed, who pleaded guilty in 2018, became an imam inside the federal jail, and earned a paralegal certificate.

“They are a nihilistic, destructive group who can’t be reasoned with. I’m ashamed I previously aligned myself with them and all the cruelty, violence and bloodshed they bring to the world, and I am terribly sorry that I tried to make myself an instrument to such horrors,” Ahmed said in a letter to Donnelly.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Heeren asked the judge to sentence Ahmed to 20 years behind bars, noting the amount of planning and deception needed to pull off his trip to Syria.

Heeran also worried that Ahmed’s leadership traits might be used “for malign purposes.”

Donnelly praised Ahmed for his transformation in jail and his relationship to his family, but said that in terrorism cases, she need to focus on deterring future crimes. “The public needs to be protected,” she said.

“This is one of the most difficult sentencings I’ve had to do, because I think you have the potential to become a constructive citizen,” she said, “and I hope this won’t deter you from continuing along that path.

Source: msn