Jamaican Muslim Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal was convicted recently in a New York court for supporting the ISIS group while in Jamaica.
He is convicted of supporting terrorism, attempting to support terrorism and conspiracy, and is facing possible prison sentences ranging from seven to 25 years.
He was the first individual to face trial under New York State terrorism laws passed after September 11, 2001. His trial and conviction follow more than two years after his extradition from Jamaica to the United States in August 2020.
Reports are that during the trial that lasted over two months in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, prosecutors portrayed el-Faisal as a jihadist who had supported ISIS between 2014 and 2017 by spreading its propaganda.
Prosecutors said he even functioned as a marriage broker for the group.
The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, said it was essential to convict el-Faisal because of his ability to spread ISIS propaganda in English and the possibility that his rhetoric could endanger people in a borough that had already experienced a terrorist attack.
Sheikh Abdullah el-Faisal was deported to Jamaica in 2007 after serving four years of a nine-year prison sentence in London on three counts of soliciting the murder of Jews, Americans, Hindus, and Christians, as well as two counts of using threatening words to incite racial hatred.
