Association for Defending Victims of Terrorism – A Canadian man who was radicalized online, uprooted his life and joined the Islamic State in Syria, rising to a top position in the terrorist group’s English-language propaganda arm, was sentenced Friday to life in prison.
Mohammed Khalifa, 39, was the English-language narrator in approximately 15 Islamic State propaganda videos, including some of its most influential and violent fare, prosecutors said.
Khalifa admitted that he appears in the final scenes of two documentary-length Islamic State videos — “Flames of War: Fighting Has Just Begun” and “Flames of War II: Until the Final Hour” — executing Syrian soldiers who had been forced to dig their own graves.
Khalifa pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism resulting in death. Prosecutors asked for the maximum penalty of life in prison. Khalifa’s attorneys had requested a sentence of 20 years, noting that he had killed two Syrian soldiers but no Americans, and that he had a wife and three children. The text of the statute under which Khalifa was charged does not require that victims who died be American.
