Ahmed Mohammed El Gammal, 46, a resident of Arizona, was
sentenced today to 12 years in prison for providing and conspiring to provide
material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated
foreign terrorist organization, aiding and abetting the receipt of
military-type training from ISIS, and conspiring to receive such training. A
jury convicted El Gammal of these charges on Jan. 30, 2017, following a
three-week trial.
Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C.
Demers and U.S Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman for the Southern District of New
York made the announcement. U.S.
District Judge Edgardo Ramos presided over the trial and issued the sentence.
According to documents publicly filed in this case and
evidence presented at trial:
Beginning in at least April 2014, El Gammal was an outspoken
online supporter of ISIS and ISIS’s Caliphate, or Islamic government, in Syria.
Among other things, El Gammal announced on social media that he was “with”
“[t]he State of Iraq and the Levant,” referring to ISIS; celebrated ISIS’s
achievements in battle and announcement of the establishment of a Caliphate;
proclaimed that he “support[s] jihad everywhere”; and declared that
“[b]eheadings have a magical effect.” El Gammal additionally announced that
“[i]f Daesh [i.e., ISIS] gets to Egypt, I will go join them, so I can torture
the Egyptians, and whip them.”
As of at least August 2014, a 24-year-old New York City
resident named Samy El-Goarany began to express his support for ISIS on social
media as well. On August 14, 2014, El-Goarany learned that El Gammal had made
comments supportive of ISIS. Minutes later, El-Goarany contacted El Gammal and
they communicated via an encrypted communications platform. Less than an hour
after this online conversation, El Gammal sent El-Goarany a documentary on life
in the Islamic State that outlined the type of training ISIS provides. Over the
next several months, El Gammal and El-Goarany continued corresponding over the
Internet, although El Gammal and El-Goarany ultimately deleted many of these
exchanges.
In the midst of these communications, in October 2014, El
Gammal traveled to New York City, where El-Goarany was enrolled in college, and
met with El-Goarany. During this October 2014 trip, El Gammal provided
El-Goarany with the phone number for El Gammal’s contact in Turkey, Ateia
Aboualala, who would be responsible for helping El-Goarany travel from Turkey
across the border to ISIS in Syria. While in New York City, El Gammal also
contacted Aboualala in Turkey regarding El-Goarany’s plans to travel. El Gammal
later provided El-Goarany with social media contact information for Aboualala.
Thereafter, in a coded conversation, El Gammal assured Aboualala that he had
vetted El-Goarany and El-Goarany could be trusted.
In late January 2015, El-Goarany left New York City for
Istanbul, Turkey. Upon arriving in Turkey, El-Goarany immediately reached out
to Aboualala. While El-Goarany was in Turkey, El Gammal continued to
communicate with El-Goarany over the Internet, providing advice on traveling
toward Syria and on meeting with Aboualala. After arriving in Syria, El-Goarany
received religious training and advanced military-type training from ISIS
throughout 2015. On May 7, 2015, in the midst of his training with ISIS,
El-Goarany reported to El Gammal that “everything [was] going according to
plan.” A few months later, on July 16, 2015, El-Goarany wrote to El Gammal:
“Life has changed a lot for me at this new job but I love it and I don’t regret
taking up the offer,” and “May God reward you with goodness,” to which El
Gammal responded, “Great.”
In May 2015, El-Goarany’s father traveled to Turkey and met
with Aboualala, in an attempt to locate his son. Upon learning of this, El
Gammal instructed Aboualala, “Don’t ever ever mention me. Not even my name[,]”
and urged Aboualala not to meet with El-Goarany’s father. On May 5, 2015,
Aboualala reported back to El Gammal, assuring El Gammal that, when Aboualala
met up with El-Goarany’s father, “I covered up for you.”
In coded messages in mid-2015, El Gammal reached out to
El-Goarany to inquire about the possibility of El Gammal’s traveling to ISIS in
Syria. On July 13, 2015, El-Goarany, again in a coded message, responded that
he needed to ask his “supervisors at work first,” but commented that “it’s
risky because the parking lot these days is going under a lot of renovation,
especially in the north side,” alluding to military operations occurring in
northern Syria at the time.
On November 23, 2015, El-Goarany’s brother received a
message from a member of ISIS with an attached letter from El-Goarany. The
letter read: “if you’re reading this then know that I’ve been killed in battle
and am now with our Lord, inshaAllah. Remember what I told you . . . we will
win this war one day, this war between Iman (Belief) and Kufr (Disbelief)
between Good and Evil. . . .”
* * *
In addition to the prison term, El Gammal was sentenced to 3
years’ supervised release.
Mr. Demers and Mr. Berman praised the outstanding
investigative work of the FBI’s New York Joint Terrorism Task Force – which
principally consists of agents from the FBI and detectives from the NYPD. Mr.
Demers and Mr. Berman also thanked the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District
of Arizona and the Phoenix Field Office of the FBI for their assistance.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Negar Tekeei, Brendan F. Quigley,
and Andrew J. DeFilippis of the Southern District of New York are in charge of
the prosecution, with assistance from Trial Attorney Ranganath Manthripragada
of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.
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