US citizen who joined Islamic State in Syria is sentenced to 10 years in prison

WASHINGTON (AP) — A naturalized U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty to receiving military training from the Islamic State group was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison.

Lirim Sylejmani, 49, engaged in at least one battle against U.S.-led forces after he entered Syria in 2015, according to prosecutors.

U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, D.C., imposed Sylejmani’s prison sentence followed by a lifetime of supervised release.

Sylejmani, who was born in Kosovo and moved to Chicago roughly 25 years ago, pleaded guilty last December to one count of receiving military training from a foreign terrorist organization.

In November 2015, Sylejmani and his family flew to Turkey and then crossed the border into Syria, where he began training with other IS recruits, according to prosecutors. They said he was injured in a battle with Syrian forces in June 2016 and was captured with his family in Baghouz, Syria, in February 2019.

“The conduct is far more than a single, impulsive act. He chose to jeopardize the safety of his family by bringing them to a war-torn country to join and take up arms for ISIS,” prosecutors wrote.

Sylejmani’s attorneys say he isn’t a “committed jihadist” and doesn’t espouse violence.

“He is guilt ridden for his actions and the harm he has visited on his family, who remain detained in a refugee camp in Syria living under terrible conditions,” his lawyers wrote. “He wishes only to complete his time and find his wife and children, so he can live an average law-abiding life with them.”