US authorities seek leniency for Islamic State cooperator

US authorities are taking the unusual step of seeking leniency for a Bangladeshi immigrant who admitted going to Syria to support the Islamic State group, saying he deserves credit for having a change of heart and giving the FBI timely intelligence about terror threats.

The New York City man, identified only as “John Doe” out of fears of retribution, wept on Wednesday at a sentencing in federal court where he called himself “an idiot” for supporting the group he says quickly disillusioned him.

“I made the greatest mistake of my life,” the 29-year-old man tells US District Judge Jack Weinstein. “I was stupid and lost, and found myself in deep danger.”

The judge put off until Thursday a decision whether to throw him in prison or put him under supervised release.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn have sought lengthy sentences in several cases involving radicalized, would-be Islamic State recruits who were thwarted before they could either fight for the group overseas or plot an attack on US soil. The man’s case differs because he succeeded in joining IS for several months in 2014 and gaining access to inside information as the group was trying to establish a self-styled “caliphate” that posed a threat to the US at home and abroad.

He began talking “within hours” of sneaking away from an IS camp in Syria, making him “uniquely situated to inform the government of (the group’s) strategies, tactics, techniques, procedures, personnel and logistical operations,” prosecutors said. Once back in the US, he secretly pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization as part of a cooperation agreement.

— AP