Prison For Dearborn Man Accused Of Wanting To Fight In Syria
DETROIT (WWJ/AP) - A 24-year-old Dearborn man accused of trying to travel to the Middle East to fight in Syria's civil war has been sentenced to five years in prison.
Mohammad Hamdan has been in custody for nearly three years and will get credit for that time. He was sentenced Wednesday, about four months after pleading guilty to making false statements to agents.
The government says Hamdan wanted to join Hezbollah, a Shiite Muslim group in Lebanon that is classified by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.
Hamdan, a native of Lebanon, was arrested in 2014 prior to boarding a flight at Detroit Metropolitan Airport. He told the FBI he was traveling for dental work, not war in Syria.
The FBI says an informant recorded conversations with Hamdan during which he said he was going to Lebanon to help Hezbollah, and that he intended to become an active member. On the recorded calls, Hamdan also allegedly said he'd been involved with Hezbollah before he immigrated to the U.S., and that he had received military training from the group.
Hamdan says he won't oppose an effort to deport him there after his prison sentence.
The FBI says Hezbollah terrorists attacks, among others, have included suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine Barracks in Beirut in 1983; the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in 1984; and the 1985 hijacking of TWA flight 847, during which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. Elements of the group were also responsible, according to the U.S. government, for the kidnapping, detention and murder of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s; and for providing explosives training to select Iraqi Shia militants since 2004.
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