A Missouri man who immigrated to the United States from Bosnia has been sentenced to eight years in federal prison for financing and facilitating terrorists in Iraq and Syria, including an ISIS leader who was active in Syria.
Ramiz Zijad Hodzic, 45, was arrested in 2015 and charged with one count of conspiracy to provide terrorists with material support, one count of providing material support to terrorists and one count of conspiracy to kill or maim persons in a foreign country, according to the Justice Department.
He allegedly provided about $10,000 to terrorists in Syria and Iraq. He reportedly used Facebook, Western Union, PayPal, and the United States Postal Service for the operations.
Hodzic pleaded guilty in April to assisting Abdullah Ramo Pazara, a Bosnian-American who died fighting for ISIS in Syria, reported the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
He recruited a group of Bosnian immigrants to help Pazara, who was living in St. Louis County and left to fight for ISIS in Syria in 2013. Prosecutors say Hodzic sent cash and military equipment to third parties in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere from 2013 to 2015.
Hodzic received money from others, including five co-defendants. Some of the money went to Abdullah Ramo Pazara, also of St. Louis County, who died while fighting for ISIS in Syria.
Three co-defendants have been sentenced to prison. Hodzic’s wife is awaiting sentencing. The fifth suspect pleaded not guilty and awaits trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Drake said that Hodzic was the “architect and organizer” of the scheme to assist Pazara with the knowledge that he was an ISIS commander who had boasted of killing people, beheadings, supporting slavery, and was in charge of about 250 troops.
“What Pazara did in Syria was horrible,” Drake said.
Two ISIS ‘Beatles’ Jihadis Apologize for Their Role in Execution Group
Two British jihadists, members of an ISIS cell called “The Beatles,” were taken into U.S. custody in October.
They will likely go on trial in Virginia, a state that has the death penalty, reported the Times of London.
In 2014 and 2015, the terrorist group kidnapped over 20 western hostages, many of whom they tortured during captivity. It also beheaded seven journalists, aid workers, and a group of Syrian soldiers.
Alexanda Kotey, 35, and El Shafee Elsheikh, 31, were interviewed by ITV News a week before being transferred to U.S. military custody.
They were taken from a Kurdish jail to prevent any possible escape during Turkey’s military activity in Syria.
Kotey was interviewed first by an English media reporter, who asked if he would apologize for the death of Bethany Haines’ father, who had been with the reporter in Syria before the interview.
Koty was repeatedly asked if he would apologize to Bethany Haines. He replied, “What I will say is that I regret—that I’m sad for her that that was the fate of her father.”
“That’s not something that I would have wished for,” he said.
“It’s not something that I’m in agreement with, and if there was anything that I had done which may have lead or caused some kind of distress to her or her father while he was in detention, then I apologize for that.”
When asked what he would say to Bethany, Kotey shook his head and said that he’s already said what he had to say; he was then repeatedly pressed by the reporter.
“I find your line of questioning irritating,” Kotey said at one point in the interview.
“I’m the wrong person to ask. If I had information about that, then we wouldn’t be sitting here having this discussion,” he said.
“You can believe it or not, it’s not going to change anything.”
The other captive, Elsheikh, said that he merely dealt with “emails, logistics, moving people around.”
He said that he couldn’t give answers about the remains of Haines, and when asked if he had Haines captive, answered, “When you’re driving a van, you don’t do a headcount. It’s not your job; your job is to drive a van.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
