A Belarusian-Israeli man is sentenced to 38 months in prison and a 12-month suspended sentence for attempting to join the Islamic State terror group in Syria.
The suspect, Valentin Vladmir Mazlevski, was arrested in a joint operation by police and the Shin Bet security service last February.
He is also handed a NIS 10,000 fine, with the option to forgo the fine in exchange for an additional 50 days in prison.
Valentin Vladmir Mazlevski, a Belarusian-Israeli man charged with attempting to join the Islamic State in Syria and Sinai, in an undated photograph. (Shin Bet)
As he was brought into the courtroom, Mazlevski told reporters in poor, heavily accented Arabic that “God will vindicate me.”
According to the indictment, he purchased a one-way ticket to Turkey in January, with the goal of crossing the border into Syria and joining the terrorist group.
He is from the Arab Israeli town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam, his wife’s hometown. The 39-year-old father of five moved to Israel from Belarus in 1996 at age 18 and converted to Islam four years later, while he was serving in the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet said.
— with Judah Ari Gross
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Monday, February 26, 2018
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