U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced Muhammad Dakhlalla after he pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization. He was also sentenced to 15 years of probation.
His fiancee, Jaelyn Young, was sentenced earlier this month to 12 years in prison and 15 years’ probation, including mandatory mental health treatment.
Prosecutors have portrayed Young, who converted to Islam while studying at Mississippi State University, as the mastermind who talked Dakhlalla into going along. However, prosecutors said, Dakhlalla ultimately agreed to the plan.
It’s been reported by other outlets that the couple were married. The Clarion-Ledger noted in a story last year that “in communications with undercover FBI employees, they stated that they were married under Sharia custom.”
Young and Dakhlalla are among a number of people arrested nationwide for Islamic State sympathies. Like many, they developed views supporting the Islamic State in part by watching online videos and were arrested after making their own social media posts that attracted the attention of the FBI.
The two were arrested in August 2015 before they could board a flight from Columbus, Mississippi, with tickets for Istanbul purchased using Young’s mother’s credit card without permission. Authorities said the couple had contacted undercover federal agents posing as IS contacts in May, seeking online help in traveling to Syria. Both have remained jailed in Oxford, Mississippi, since their arrests.