A Minnesota man described as a leader of a group of nine who plotted to travel to Syria to fight for the Islamic State group was sentenced to 35 years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge who said he didn’t believe the man’s tearful apologies and words of contrition.
(FOX)- Two other members of what U.S. District Judge Michael Davis repeatedly called a “terrorist cell” — Mohamed Farah and Abdirahman Daud, both 22 — were sentenced earlier Wednesday to 30 years in prison apiece. But Guled Omar, 22, drew the longest sentence of the nine defendants who appeared before Davis this week.
“I understand the seriousness of what I’ve been convicted of, and I understand that I will not be able to go home anytime soon,” Omar told the judge as he awaited his sentence, which ended up being less than the 40 years prosecutors sought. “I always had energy for justice as a young man but I lost my way.”
Omar’s statement sent his mother in the gallery into sobbing uncontrollably while other family members left the courtroom to collect their emotions. Davis didn’t buy it.
“Everything you have said here, I don’t believe,” Davis said.
Prosecutor Andrew Winter said Omar’s tears could not be trusted.
“Only when backed into a corner, does he attempt to offer false contrition. You can’t fix manipulative. You can’t fix deceitful. And you can’t fix Guled Omar. He has blood on his hands,” Winter said.
A jury convicted Omar, Farah and Daud in June of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S. Prosecutors said the plot involved of a group of friends in the state’s large Somali community who inspired each other to join the militant group. Some of their friends made it to Syria, but the nine who were caught did not.