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Elvis Redzepagic, age 30, of Commack, was sentenced on Friday, Nov. 19, after pleading guilty in April, said Breon Peace, US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York,
“With the imposition of today’s lengthy sentence, Redzepagic pays a steep price for his misguided embrace of terrorism and his attempts to join ISIS and the al-Nusrah Front in order to wage violent jihad,” stated Peace.
In early 2015, Redzepagic began communicating with an individual he believed to be both the commander of a battalion in Syria and a member of ISIS or the al-Nusrah Front and made attempts to join that individual’s battalion to engage in violent jihad, the US Attorney's Office said.
In July 2015, Redzepagic traveled to Turkey and made multiple unsuccessful attempts to cross the border into Syria. Unable to enter Syria from Turkey, Redzepagic traveled to Jordan in August 2016 but was stopped and deported by Jordanian authorities.
In Facebook messages from October 2015, Redzepagic explained that “jihad” is when “you fight for the sake of God” and “die for the sake of Allah.” Redzepagic stated that he traveled to Turkey to “perform Jihad and join Jabhat Al-Nusra.” He predicted, “there will come a time where people will only know to say Allahu Akbar.”d
A search of his laptop yielded a variety of ISIS-specific extremist propaganda. Redzepagic also repeatedly accessed the website “Put hilafeta,” or “Way to the Caliphate,” a Bosnian-language website for prospective foreign fighters from the Balkans who primarily sought to join ISIS and wage jihad in Syria.
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