US teenager who planned to join ISIS in Syria jailed for four years

[Maxim]

US teenager who planned to join Isis in Syria jailed for four years

The judge advised Conley to seek psychological help

Lamiat Sabin
Saturday 24 January 2015

An American teenager who conspired to join Isis in Syria was sentenced to prison for four years yesterday.

Shannon Maureen Conley, 19, from Denver in Colorado, pleaded guilty in September to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation.

Conley – who planned to work as a nurse’s aide and said she would engage in battle if she had to – wanted to marry a man she met online who told her he was fighting with Isis, FBI agents claim.

She told the judge that she was misled on what Islam is about and claimed she only learnt about the atrocities Isis inflicted in the Middle East after her arrest.

Conley, who was arrested in April last year as she boarded a plane on a journey to Syria via Turkey, said: “I am glad I have learned of their true identity here and not on the front lines.

“I disavow these radical views I’ve come to know and I now believe in the true Islam in which peace is encouraged.”

Judge Raymond Moore said he doubted her views had changed, and advised her to seek psychological help.

Conley tried to travel from the US to Syria

He also sentenced her to three years of supervised release and 100 hours of community service. He also barred her from possessing black powder used in explosives, saying: “I’m not going to take a chance with you.”

He added: “I don’t know what has been crystallised in your mind. I’m still not sure you get it.”

She is also required to divulge information she may have about others from America with similar plans.

FBI agents say they became aware of her interest in joining a terrorist organisation in late 2013, after she started talking about it with members of a church, and they say they tried to dissuade her from becoming involved.

“Even though I was committed to the idea of jihad, I didn’t want to hurt anyone,” she said in court yesterday. “It was all about defending Muslims.”

The judge described her as a lonely high school drop-out with almost no friends her own age and an obsession with the military.

Federal defender Robert Pepin said Conley had grown and that also giving herself the Muslim name Amatullah, and previously Halima, is a show of her transformation.