INDIAN PLEADS GUILTY TO TERROR CHARGE, GETS 27.5 YEARS IN US JAIL

NEWDELHI: Indian national Yahya Farooq Mohammad was on Monday sentenced to 27 and a half years in prison in the US after pleading guilty to providing thousands of dollars to slain al-qaeda leader Anwar al-awlaki and soliciting the murder of the judge hearing his case.

Mohammad, 39, was an engineering student at Ohio State University during 2002-04 and married a US citizen in 2008.

He and three other accused – his brother Ibrahim Mohammad, Asif Ahmed Salim, and Sultane Room Salim – were indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2015. The case against the three other men, who pleaded not guilty, is pending.

Mohammad will be deported from the US on the completion of his sentence, under the terms of his plea agreement.

“As part of his conspiracy, the defendant provided thousands of dollars to Anwar al-awlaki in response to his calls to support violent jihad. Once detained, the defendant also solicited the murder of the judge presiding over his case,” said acting assistant attorney general Dana J Boente.

Al-awlaki, who was killed in a US drone strike in Yemen in September 2011, was designated as a global terrorist in 2010 and identified as a key leader of al-qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.