(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) WASHINGTON, Dec 18 (KUNA) -- A US federal jury convicted a former police officer Monday of attempting to provide material support to the so-called Islamic State (IS) in Syria and Iraq and obstruction of justice.
The Department of Justice indicated that according to court records and evidence presented at trial, Nicholas Young, 38, who was formerly employed as a police officer with the Metro Transit Police Department, attempted in in 2016 "to provide material support and resources to (IS) by purchasing and sending gift card codes that he believed would allow (IS) recruiters to securely communicate with potential (IS) recruits.
Also in 2015, Young attempted to "obstruct and impede an official proceeding," and in 2014 he "attempted to obstruct, influence, and impede an official proceeding of the Grand Jury." Young faces a maximum penalty of 60 years in prison when sentenced in February 2018.
In a separate statement, the Department of Justice noted that Omar Faraj Al Hardan, a 25-year-old refugee born in Iraq and resided in Houston, has been ordered to federal prison for 16 years following his conviction of "attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization." At the time of his plea in 2016, Al Hardan had admitted he "attempted to provide material support, specifically himself, to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL)." Al Hardan entered the US as a refugee in November 2009, where after being admitted into the US as an Iraqi refugee, he was granted legal permanent residence status in 2011, and in 2014 he took an oath of loyalty to ISIL, according to the statement.
It added "upon his arrest in January 2016, investigators discovered training CDs on how to build remote detonators, electronic circuitry components, tools used to build circuitry, multiple cell phones (that had not been activated), a prayer list for committing Jihad and becoming a martyr and the ISIL flag." (end) si
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