A MS woman who at one point planned her “honeymoon” to actually be a trip to join ISIS has received her federal sentence.
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A MS woman, who was arrested last summer for attempting to fly to Syria to join the Islamic State and then pleaded guilty to federal terrorism charges has been handed a twelve-year prison sentence. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock passed the sentence of twelve years as the woman’s parents pleaded for leniency, according to the Associated Press. They were accused of conspiring and attempting to provide material support and resources to the terror organization ISIS.
She faces up to 20 years in prison and fines.
Her boyfriend faces his own sentencing on August 24.
Young, a sophomore chemistry major at Mississippi State University at the time of her arrest, is the daughter of a school administrator and a police officer who served in the Navy Reserve.
The couple was arrested in August 2015 at a MS airport en route to Syria where they sought to join Daesh under the pretense of going on their honeymoon, according to court documents.
Dakhlalla is due to be sentenced on August 24.
Young and Dakhlalla were among a number of people arrested around the country for Islamic State sympathies.
According to court records, the couple, who had an Islamic marriage but did not get their union legally recognized, were motivated to join the group after viewing Islamic State executions of people they deemed immoral, and because they perceived the group as “liberators” of parts of Syria and Iraq. She was a former honor student, cheerleader and homecoming maid at Vicksburg’s Warren Central High School. Both remained jailed in Oxford since their arrests.
Dakhlalla graduated from Mississippi State University last May with a bachelor’s degree in psychology.
Court papers say Young announced her conversion in March 2015 and began wearing a burqa.
Young’s Twitter posts about her desire to join the militant group caught the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in May 2015, and an agent posing as an Islamic State recruiter began corresponding with her and Dakhlalla.
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They told the Federal Bureau of Investigation they wanted to be medics treating the wounded, but court papers told a different story of desiring to fight alongside terrorists. Court papers say Dakhlalla said online that he wanted to become a fighter and learn “what it really means to have that heart in battle”.
