Canadian sentenced for supporting al Qaida

Warsame, a naturalized Canadian citizen of Somali descent who lived in Minneapolis, was sentenced to 7 years in prison and three years of supervised release. Warsame was convicted on one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to al Qaida. Back in May Warsame plead guilty to providing material support and resources to al Qaida and in exchange the Feds dropped three counts of making false statements to the FBI.

According to court documents, Warsame travelled to Afghanistan through Pakistan in 2000 where he attended an al Qaida training camp near Kabul. Later in 2000, Warsame traveled to another training camp where he met Osama bin Laden who he described as "very inspirational". During this time Warsame fought with the taliban against the North Alliance.

Warsame later returned to Pakistan where he kept in contact with al Qaida through emails. In one of the emails Warsame described his time spent at the training camps as "one of the greatest experiences of my life. I will be going back there very soon."

In December of 2000, he wrote an email to al Qaida which stated "If you have any news or important information please let me know, because I don't want to be late for the action, you know what I mean. We hear there might be an attack soon."

National Post

A Canadian who left Toronto in 2000 to join Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was sentenced to 7½ years imprisonment yesterday after admitting he had trained with and helped finance the terrorist group.

Although his lawyers described Mohamed Abdullah Warsame as simply "a naive, near-sighted and overweight idealist" who became deeply religious while living in Toronto and travelled to Afghanistan in search of an "Islamic utopia," prosecutors in Minneapolis argued the 35-year-old Somali, who came to Canada as a refugee in 1989, was devoted to the al-Qaeda cause.[...]

"Mr. Warsame's actions demonstrate that he was a member of the organization, that he believed in its cause, and that he was willing to violate United States law in support of al-Qaeda," said U. S. Attorney Frank Magill.

Warsame's lawyers maintained that his trek to Afghanistan was not driven by violent ideals, but rather religious devotion. "There came a time, however, where it became so apparent that his vision of the new Islamic world was different than that embraced by the other men who had travelled to Afghanistan," defence lawyer Andrea George wrote in a sentencing memorandum.

What if his religious devotion mandates violent behavior?