OXFORD, Miss. – The Latest on the sentencing of a Mississippi man who tried to join the Islamic State group (all times local):
3 p.m.
A Mississippi man who once tried to join the Islamic State group credits FBI agents who arrested him at an airport before he could depart with saving his life.
U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced Muhammad Dakhlalla to eight years in prison and 15 years of probation Wednesday. Dakhlalla, 22, pleaded guilty in March to a federal terrorism charge.
Dakhlalla says he didn't then understand then what the Islamic State represented, saying he was misled by videos he watched with former fiancee Jaelyn Young that showed Islamic State members helping people in Syria and Iraq.
He says he changed his mind after watching television news coverage of Islamic State attacks while jailed.
Aycock sentenced Young to 12 years in prison and 15 years of probation earlier this month.
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1:30 p.m.
A Mississippi man who tried to travel to Syria with his fiancee to join the Islamic State group has been sentenced to eight years in prison on federal terrorism charges.
Muhammad Dakhlalla was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock. Dakhlalla pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization.
Dakhlalla, of Starkville, faced up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 in fines and lifetime probation.
Jaelyn Young, his fiancee, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Aug. 11. Young converted to Islam while studying at Mississippi State University. Prosecutors have said she talked Dakhlalla into the plan, and that she considered disguising their journey as a honeymoon.
The two were arrested in 2015 trying to depart the Columbus, Mississippi, airport for Istanbul.
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