Cab Driver Who Tried to Help Islamic State Sentenced

A taxi driver caught helping a friend try to join the Islamic State group during an FBI sting has been sentenced to 11 years in prison. 

Twenty-six-year-old Mahmoud Elhassan of Woodbridge, Virginia, was arrested last year after he drove Joseph Farrokh to the Richmond airport, where he planned to begin a trip to join the Islamic State in Syria. 

Prosecutors say Elhassan, who started a prayer table outside Verizon Center in Washington seeking to proselytize others to Islam, offered himself online as a "sleeper cell'' to overseas radicals. 

Farrokh was sentenced to 8 years in prison. 

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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