Man sentenced to nine years for attempting to join ISIL

Ismael Habib’s strong loyalty to the principles of the Islamic State as well as the lack of evidence supporting his prospect for rehabilitation justified a nine-year prison term, a Quebec court judge said Friday.

Judge Serge Delisle sentenced Habib to nine years in prison for attempting to leave Canada to join the Islamic State and for giving false information to obtain a passport.

He cited the 29-year-old Habib’s “total adherence’’ to the principals and goals of the Islamic State as a factor justifying a longer sentence.

“This was not the utopian and thoughtless project of a teenager who was manipulated or carried away by an impulse,’’ Delisle told the court.

“It was rather with perfect knowledge of the objectives of the Islamic State and the methods used by this entity that the offender multiplied the steps to return to Syria and join the Islamic State.’’

Additionally, Delisle noted the court had not been presented with any evidence on Habib’s prospects for rehabilitation, which he cited as another reason for the nine-year term.

Habib was given eight years for the terrorism offence and one year for the passport violation.

The time Habib has already spend in custody was subtracted from the sentence, leaving him with just over sixand-a-half years left to serve.

Habib will be eligible for parole after completing half the sentence.

His attorney had suggested six-and-a-half years minus the nearly 27 months Habib has served in pre-trial custody.

The accused was ensnared by an RCMP-led sting operation, in which he admitted to an undercover agent posing as a crime boss that he wanted to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State.

He was found guilty in June, making him the first adult in Canada to be convicted after going to trial on the charge of attempting to leave Canada to join the Islamic State.