Interesting. This time it’s Hezbollah instead of al Qaeda or ISIS. From Middle East Eye:
A US resident was sentenced on Wednesday to five years and three months in prison for lying to a federal agent about plans to join Hezbollah in Syria. His lawyer and family argued that he was encouraged to make incriminating statements by an FBI informant.
Mohammad Hamdan was 21 years old when he was arrested in 2014 at the airport in Detroit. He was the victim of an opportunist informant who posed as his friend and suggested that he travel to Lebanon to enlist with Hezbollah and protect Shia shrines in Syria, his mother told MEE.
Hezbollah is designated as a terrorist organisation by the US State Department.
Hamdan was a permanent US resident who lived in Dearborn, Michigan – home to a large Arab American community. He will be deported to Lebanon after serving his sentence.
He pled guilty to lying to a federal agent in August, in a legal agreement between the prosecution and the defence that saw the more serious charge of attempted material support to terrorism dropped.
His mother, Monira Baydoun, stressed that he is innocent and that he lacked the desire and ability to join Hezbollah.
She said he had a dysfunctional lung, was not religiously devout and suffered from drug addiction. Hamdan had faced marijuana possession charges before his arrest.
Baydoun said her son was going through depression and a host of personal issues, including breaking up with his longtime girlfriend in 2014.
She told MEE that the FBI informant, a fellow immigrant, preyed on her son’s vulnerabilities and delivered Hamdan to the authorities in exchange for settling his immigration status.
