The three remaining men left to be sentenced in the Minnesota ISIS trial received severe prison terms on Wednesday.
MPR reports U.S. District Judge Michael Davis sentenced Guled Omar, 22, the leader and chief recruiter of the group to 35 years in prison. His comrades Abdirahman Daud and Mohamed Farah, both also 22, each received sentences of 30 years.
Davis completed sentencing the nine men from Minnesota caught trying to join ISIS. The three men sentenced Wednesday were the only members of the group to plead not guilty to all charges. They instead took their cases to trial and were convicted in June.
“This community needs to understand there is a jihadist cell in this community. Its tentacles spread out. Young people went to Syria and died,” U.S. District Judge Michael Davis said, reports MPR, “You might want to publicize these are just young kids that are misguided. This court is thankful there was a trial so all the evidence could come out … The lies you did should be published so there’s no doubt of what’s happening here.”
Omar and the other defendants expressed varying degrees of contrition regarding their actions. This includes attempting to procure fake passports and multiple attempts to leave the country on the way to join ISIS.
Prosecuting attorney Andrew Winter was not impressed with their late contrition.
“Make no mistake, this defendant is extraordinarily dangerous,” Winter said of Omar, reports MPR, “Only when backed into a corner, does he attempt to offer false contrition.”
The other six Minneapolis ISIS cell members received sentences earlier this week. Punishments range from time already served with 20 years supervised release, up to 15 years in prison with 23 years supervised release. These sentences are lighter compared to Omar’s, Daud’s, and Farah’s in part due to the mixed cooperation of the others, all of whom pled guilty, and some of whom also cooperated with the government thereafter.
