American man sentenced to 15 years for giving al-Qaida $67K and other aid
A federal judge today sentenced an American man to 15 years in prison for giving $67,000 to al-Qaida and helping the group with technology for evading surveillance and for mass-killing devices, the New York Daily News reports.
Wesam El-Hanafi, who lived in Brooklyn, had entered a plea agreement in 2012 and faced up to 20 years in prison. Judge Kimba Wood, of the U.S. Southern District of New York, gave him less than that, she said, because he has deep vein thrombosis. “His years in confinement have been significantly harsher than they would have been for an average inmate,” Judge Wood said.
El-Hanafi, an Egyptian-American, has sued the U.S. government for lack of medical care, saying the condition was caused by tight shackles worn for three days and four nights after he surrendered to U.S. authorities in 2010 in Dubai, the newspaper reported earlier.
El-Hanafi, 39, is an information technology specialist and graduate of Baruch College. At sentencing, El-Hanafi apologized and said he has changed, describing himself as “a person dedicated to leading a moral and law-abiding life, wholly committed to my family. That is who I was before I got involved with this terrible ideology.”
El-Hanafi became radicalized in 2003 and met with a senior al-Qaida operative who authorities call “The Doctor,” in Yemen in 2008. He gave $12,000 in cash to the Doctor in that instance.
A co-defendant, Sabirhan Hasanoff, received an 18-year sentence from Judge Wood in 2013 after his guilty plea. Among other things, Hasanoff, also a Baruch College graduate, provided material support to al-Qaida that included surveillance for a possible terrorist attack on the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Times reported at the time.
