Muhammad Masood, 31, was sentenced on Friday to 18 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a Department of Justice statement said.
He pleaded guilty in August last year and was sentenced before Senior Judge Paul A Magnuson.
According to court documents, Masood was a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan and was formerly employed as a research coordinator at a medical clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, under an H-1B visa.
Between January 2020 and March 2020, Masood used an encrypted messaging application to facilitate his travel overseas to join a terrorist organisation. Masood made multiple statements about his desire to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), and he pledged his allegiance to the designated terrorist organisation and its leader.
Masood also expressed his desire to conduct "lone wolf" terrorist attacks in the United States. In February 2020, Masood purchased a plane ticket from Chicago,
Illinois, to Amman, Jordan, and from there planned to travel to Syria. In March that year, Masood's travel plans changed because Jordan closed its borders to incoming travel due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Masood then agreed to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet an individual who, he believed, would assist him with travel via cargo ship to deliver him to an ISIS territory.
He travelled from Rochester to Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport (MSP) to board a flight bound for Los Angeles, California. Upon arrival at MSP, Masood checked in for his flight and was subsequently arrested by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force.
A 28-year old Pakistani doctor who was working with a reputed medical clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and had claimed that he desires to carry out “Lone wolf” terror attacks in the United States, has been indicted by a federal grand jury. Muhammad Masood was formally accused by the grand jury on the charges of attempting to provide material support to the terrorist organisation ISIS, according to a statement issued on Friday from the Department of Justice.
The indictment against Masood was announced on Friday by US Attorney Erica MacDonald. Masood was initially charged by criminal complaint after his arrest last month. Muhammad Masood is living in the US on an H1B visa. He is a licensed medical doctor from Pakistan working as a research coordinator in Minnesota.
US Attorney Erica Macdonald revealed the same on Friday. Masood is in custody since his March 19 arrest at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Reportedly, between January and March, he made several statements that include his intentions to work for the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham and its leader, expressing his desire to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.
The court papers alleged that Masood said that he wanted to conduct ‘lone wolf’ terror attacks in the US. As per reports, Masood purchased a plane ticket on 21 February to travel to Amman from Chicago, and from there he planned to travel to Syria. After March 16, when Jordan closed its borders due to coronavirus pandemic, he planned to fly from Minneapolis to Los Angeles to meet someone who was to assist him in travel via Cargo ship to reach ISIS territory.
Reportedly, on March 19, he traveled from Rochester to Minneapolis’s St.Paul International Airpor t(MSP) to board a flight for Los Angeles. After reaching the MSP, after he checked in for the flight, he was arrested by the Federal Bureau of investigation’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.
Masood had pledged his allegiance to the extremist Islamic terror outfit, besides expressing his desire to execute ‘lone wolf attacks’ in the United States. He was living in the country for 2 years, at the time of arrest, on an H-1B visa.The Pakistani doctor graduated in 2016 from the Riphah International University in Islamabad which supposedly produces professionals with Islamic morals and ethics. He worked at the Pakistan Railway Hospital, Federal Government Polyclinic Post-Graduate Medical Institute and the Government of Punjab’s Healthcare department in Rawalpindi before joining Mayo Clinic in Minnesota in the US as a research trainee in February 2018.
During the investigation, FBI officials found that Masood was the encrypted Social Media Platform (SMP) user ‘BB’ who wanted to travel to Syria and help the ISIS carry out their acts of terror. Muhammed Masood wanted to use his medical knowledge to work as a frontline jihadist and help the ‘mujahideen'(terrorists) on ground zero. He also wanted to be trained in weaponry. During his conversation with one of the sources, the Pakistani doctor revealed that he hated smiling at the Kaffir (non-Muslim/infidel) passing by but he did so nevertheless to avoid making them suspicious.
Masood also desired to study engineering and help transform small drones that could be purchased online into ‘suicide bombing drones’. He believed that ‘Qiyamah‘ (the day of judgment) was near and thus wanted to do jihad. On meeting one of the sources, he requested for a fabricated visa to keep his travel history clean and wanted to travel to Jordan before making into the ISIS territory.