UH engineering student who tried to join ISIS in Syria sentenced to 18 months in federal prison

Asher Abid Khan, 23, of Spring, walks toward the United States District Courthouse for his sentencing before a federal court judge on Monday, June 25, 2018, in Houston. Khan was a University of Houston student who admitted he plotted to join the jihadist fight in Syria. ( Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle ) less Asher Abid Khan, 23, of Spring, walks toward the United States District Courthouse for his sentencing before a federal court judge on Monday, June 25, 2018, in Houston. Khan was a University of Houston student ... more Photo: Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle Photo: Yi-Chin Lee / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close UH engineering student who tried to join ISIS in Syria sentenced to 18 months in federal prison 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

A college student from Spring who got cold feet en route to joining ISIS fighters in Syria was sentenced Monday to 18 months in prison by a federal judge who warned him against following “impulses” in a search for “easy answers.”

In a sharp departure from the federal sentencing guidelines, U.S. District Judge Lynn N. Hughes ordered Asher Abid Khan, 23, a mechanical engineering student at the University of Houston, to prison followed by five years of supervision after deciding he had shown potential for rehabilitation.

With three rows of his family and friends looking on in the courtroom, Khan apologized to the sobbing mother and other relatives of Sixto Ramiro Garcia, a former Klein Oak High School classmate who was killed in Syria after joining the jihadists.

“I am deeply sorry that things happened the way that they did and for whatever I may have done to facilitate it,” Khan said in a soft voice. “I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”

The sentence surprised federal authorities, who had recommended more than 20 years in prison and a lifetime of supervision.

“It’s a significant departure from what probation originally determined his sentence should be, which was over 20 years,” said Ted Imperato, deputy chief of the national security section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Houston.

Khan, a U.S. citizen, is the sixth person in Texas to plead guilty to attempting to provide support for ISIS. Three others are awaiting trial: Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya in Houston, Said Azzam Mohammad Rahim in Dallas and Matin Azizi-Yarand in Plano, said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University and a national expert on homegrown extremist plots.

George Washington University has tracked 161 people charged in the U.S. with offenses related to the Islamic State terrorist group known as ISIS or ISIL since March 2014.

Although prosecutors asked that Khan be taken into custody, Hughes allowed him to remain on bond until he is summoned by the U.S. Bureau of Prisons.

PLEA HEARING: College student admits to conspiracy to support ISIS

Khan told the judge that at 19 he felt torn between the American culture of his school friends and his family’s Pakistani culture at home. He became disillusioned by videos of Syrian children trapped in bombed-out buildings and thought the Islamic caliphate as seen through online propaganda was a noble solution to overthrowing the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“When I read my old text messages I can’t believe how stupid and ignorant I was,” he told the judge.

Defense attorney David Adler said that since returning to Houston, Khan had dedicated himself to his job, schoolwork and family, and to speaking openly about his experience to young people who might consider joining terrorist groups.

“The man that stands here is a very, very, very different man than the stupid, naive man who believed this was a good thing to do,” he said.

In handing down the sentence Monday, Hughes spoke broadly about the downfalls of impulsivity, touching on the Salem witch burnings, the 1886 Haymarket riot and Voltaire’s warning that absurd thinking engenders atrocities.

“Impulses are not good ideas; easy answers are always wrong,” Hughes said, warning that seeking fortune and fame the quick way never ends well.

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Alamdar Shabbir Hamdani, however, said Khan had not altered his ways, saying he had helped connect Garcia to a recruiter in Syria and continued to share ideas about ISIS online.

FBI officials have said Khan caught the attention of officials at the McAllen division while he was living in Australia in 2014. The agent testified that Khan sent a Facebook friend request to Garcia, a friend from high school who had attended the same Houston-area mosque but by then was living in South Texas.

He told Garcia, known as SRG, via Facebook that he wanted to join ISIS. A few weeks later, he told an alleged ISIS recruiter that he wanted to “die as a shahid,” or martyr.

Federal officials said Khan and Garcia made plans to meet in Turkey near the Syrian border. Garcia departed on Feb. 24, 2014, and Khan left for Istanbul the next day with plans to continue on to Syria, but he cut short the trip and returned to Houston after family members falsely told him his mother was in intensive care. Garcia made it through to Syria, where he sent panicked messages to his friend after he failed to show up.

Once he was back in Houston, Khan helped Garcia connect with an ISIS recruiter and gave him $200 or $300 to cover costs. By August 2014, Garcia made it to ISIS boot camp. On Dec. 25, 2014, Garcia's mother saw a notice on Facebook that her son had died fighting for the cause.

Sobia Siddiqui, a spokesperson for CAIR-Houston, said homegrown terrorism in the Muslim community is an aberration that’s unnerving to everyone and very hard to explain when families are trying to bring children up with good values.

“We have dealt with a lot of community members and every single time it shakes them up,” she said. “It’s the last thing on anyone’s mind. It’s frightening for students and for parents, who think, ‘How could this have happened in our community?’”

“I don’t think his parents had any idea,” Siddiqui said.