New Jersey man sentenced to eight years in prison for support of Islamic State

A New Jersey man was sentenced to eight years in prison on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to taking part in a conspiracy to support Islamic State, federal prosecutors announced.

Samuel Rahamin Topaz, 24, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Susan Wigenton in Newark, who also imposed a lifetime term of supervised release. A lawyer for Topaz could not immediately be reached for comment.

Topaz was arrested in June 2015 and pleaded guilty to conspiring to support Islamic State. He admitted that he made plans with several other young men to travel to the Middle East to join the militant group, prosecutors said.

One of the others in the group, Nader Saadeh, actually traveled to Jordan in 2015 and was arrested by authorities there. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison by Wigenton on Monday.

Topaz was the last of five people arrested in connection with the plot to be sentenced. The others, who all pleaded guilty, were Saadeh’s brother, Alaa Saadeh, who was sentenced to 15 years in prison in May 2016; Munther Omar Saleh, who was sentenced to 18 years in February; and Fareed Mumuni, who was sentenced to 17 years last week.

The Saadehs were also charged and sentenced in New Jersey federal court, while Saleh and Mumuni were charged and sentenced in Brooklyn federal court. Prosecutors said Saleh and Mumuni made plans to detonate homemade bombs in Manhattan’s Times Square and World Trade Center.

Source: Reuters