A Brooklyn man who pleaded guilty to supporting a terrorist group after he was arrested trying to board a plane to the Middle East to wage jihad was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday.
The man, Agron Hasbajrami, an Albanian who had been living legally in Brooklyn since 2008, pleaded guilty in April to sending more than $1,000 to a contact in Pakistan to finance terrorist activities before deciding to travel abroad to join a radical Islamist terrorist organization, which was not named in court papers.
As a part of his plea agreement, prosecutors dropped three additional terrorism charges, which could have sent Mr. Hasbajrami, 28, to prison for life. He was sentenced to the maximum 15-year prison term on the single remaining charge.
Judge John Gleeson, who sentenced Mr. Hasbajrami in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, said he would have preferred to send him to prison for even longer.
