Chicago man gets 25 years for serving as a ‘press person’ for the ISIS terrorist organization

A federal judge on Thursday handed a 25-year prison sentence to a former Chicago software developer who the feds say functioned as a “press person for the Islamic State” terrorist organization and held a sincere, “radical urge for bloodshed.”

Ashraf Al Safoo, 41, already has served more than seven years behind bars since prosecutors filed charges against him in 2018. His attorney sought a sentence of time-served, arguing he’s caused no trouble in jail and basically amounted to a “keyboard warrior.”

But U.S. District Judge John Blakey said Al Safoo’s crimes went beyond words — “it was material support for the murder and destruction of other human beings.”

While you did not pull a trigger or detonate a bomb or behead someone with your own hand, by your own knife, you engaged in a course of conduct that facilitated and rooted them on,” Blakey told Al Safoo while handing down the sentence.

In a bench trial last year, Blakey convicted Al Safoo of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, among other crimes.

Read more: Chicago Sun-Times