A 17-year-old high school honor student in Virginia was sentenced to 11 years in prison Friday for conspiring to assist the Islamic State (ISIL), which the US has declared a terror group. Among other allegations, Ali Shukri Amin was charged for assisting ISIL via blog and Twitter posts about encryption and Bitcoin.
"Ali Shukri Amin is a young American who used social media to provide material support to ISIL," assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in a statement following Friday's sentencing before US District Judge Claude Hilton in Virginia. "More and more, their propaganda is seeping into our communities and reaching those who are most vulnerable."
Amin, one of the youngest people in the US to face terror charges, pleaded guilty (PDF) in June and faced a maximum 15 years in prison. The boy founded the @amreekiwitness Twitter handle a year ago, garnering more than 4,000 followers and tweeting more than 7,000 times. Last year, the authorities said, he tweeted on the now-defunct Twitter handle about how jihadists could use Bitcoin "to fund their efforts."
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