ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A taxi driver caught helping a friend try to join the Islamic State group during an FBI sting faces a sentence of anywhere from four to 28 years.
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. The government is seeking a sentence near the 28-year maximum at a hearing Friday in Alexandria, Virginia.
Elhassan’s lawyers are asking for a term of four to six years.
Farrokh was sentenced to 8½ years in prison.
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