WASHINGTON—A naturalized U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty to receiving military training from the ISIS terrorist group was sentenced Monday to 10 years in federal prison.
Lirim Sylejmani, 49, engaged in at least one battle against U.S.-led forces after he entered Syria in 2015, according to prosecutors.
U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras in Washington, imposed Sylejmani’s prison sentence followed by a lifetime of supervised release.
Sylejmani, who was born in Kosovo and moved to Chicago roughly 25 years ago, pleaded guilty last December to one count of receiving military training from a foreign terrorist organization.
In November 2015, Sylejmani and his family flew to Turkey and then crossed the border into Syria, where he began training with other ISIS recruits, according to prosecutors. They said he was injured in a battle with Syrian forces in June 2016 and was captured with his family in Baghouz, Syria, in February 2019….