A 39-year-old Brooklyn-born man was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday for his support of Al Qaeda. Wesam El-Hanafi, a former IT professional, was arrested in 2010 for sending more than $65,000 to the terrorist organization. (He also gifted them a toy car, whose parts were intended for use in an explosive device.) El-Hanafi also gave Al Qaeda technical advice and advised a co-defendant (who was sentenced to 18 years in 2012) to spy on the New York Stock Exchange, though apparently the report was pretty limited in its intel, reports the Daily News.
El-Hanafi, who faced up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges in 2012, received a slightly lesser sentence from the judge, who took into account a medical condition (it causes serious blood-clotting) and his expression of remorse. El-Hanafi, for his part, said that he’d been reflecting on his misdeeds and was embarrassed by his involvement with Al Qaeda, admitting, “I didn’t just make the wrong choices, I made the worst choices.”
