Airforce Man sentenced to 35 years now prison for trying to join ISIS

Tairod Pugh, a US Air Force veteran was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Wednesday after being convicted on terrorism charges for trying to join ISIS.

The 49-year-old man was convicted in March of 2016 of attempting to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State group and die a martyr.

In a Brooklyn Federal Court, US District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis referred to it as a ‘very sad thing’ a onetime airman would want to join a group seeking to destroy the country he previously defended.

‘This isn’t about whether you’re a Muslim or a Christian or Jewish,’ Garaufis told Pugh, who is American and from Neptune, New Jersey. ‘This is about whether you’re going to stand up for your country.’

The Brooklyn judge called Pugh’s military service ‘a long time ago’ commendable but said the defendant squandered his training as an airplane mechanic and all the good things the United States did for him with a decision to betray his country.

‘I cannot imagine someone who served in the United States military, arm in arm with patriotic Americans, crossing the border to destroy what we have built in this country for the past 240 years,’ Garaufis said.

‘It’s a very sad thing you have done. You can stand up for your country or you can betray it. You made your choice, sir. I have no sympathy,’ the judge said.

Prosecutors said Pugh traveled from Egypt to Turkey on January 10, 2015, in an effort to cross the border into Syria to join ISIS and engage in violent ‘jihad’.

The post Airforce Man sentenced to 35 years now prison for trying to join ISIS appeared first on GISTFLICK.COM.