American Man Who Joined ISIS And Fled Immediately Ends Up In Jail For 20 Years

A US citizen has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after being found guilty of joining and providing material support to Islamic State. 28-year-old Mohamad Khweis, a resident of Alexandria, Virginia was captured by Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq in March 2016, while he was fleeing from ISIS.

AP/ File

Khweis is the first US citizen to be captured on the battlefield, according to a press release by the Department of Justice. He had left the US in mid-December 2015 and crossed into Syria through Turkey with the help of a smuggler to join the ISIS.

The US citizen was eventually deployed to Tal Afar, Iraq, by IS from where he decided to flee after a few months. He surrendered in northern Iraq to Kurdish forces, who broadcast his capture around the world where he said he ¡°wasn¡¯t thinking straight¡± when he joined the Islamic terrorist group.

"I didn't agree with their ideology," Khweis explained.

According to The Washington Post, he insisted on going to trial, saying he merely wanted to experience the ¡°caliphate.¡± During the trial, Khweis¡¯ defence attorney John Zwerling stated that Khweis is not as violent as he looks on paper.

"While he was there, he did not fight. He did not do harm to another human being," he said, AP reported.

Evidence provided against Khweis showed he spent two and a half months as a member of IS.

Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 35 years, defence attorneys for five.

Khweis could have gone to prison for life.

More than 100 people in the US have already been charged with aiding, or trying to join IS.