A 20-year-old Minneapolis man has been sentenced to more than 15 years in prison for stabbing two people last November at the Mall of America in Bloomington.

Hennepin County District Judge Kerry Meyer on Friday ordered that Mahad Abdiraham serve two consecutive sentences for stabbing Alex Sanchez and his brother, John Sanchez.

“I could not bring myself to be present,” Alex Sanchez said in a statement read in court by a county attorney’s victim advocate. “This ordeal has changed my whole life.”

The Sanchez family had a tradition of going to the Mall of America on Sunday nights. They would eat dinner, then go shopping or see a movie. Alex Sanchez needed to buy pants that night, so eight of his other family members went to Macy’s with him.

When Alex Sanchez came out of the dressing room, Abdiraham was standing there with a large knife and began stabbing him, according to the criminal complaint.

Alex Sanchez shouted and his brother John, their father and a cousin rushed to try to stop Abdiraham until police arrived.

Alex Sanchez was stabbed multiple times in the face, with one stab wound to his left arm so deep it reached the bone.

“The scars on my face and my upper torso are so visible and people stare at me,” Alex Sanchez, 19 said in the statement.

John Sanchez, 25, cannot bend one of his thumbs. His 5-month-old son witnessed the attack and now fears going to the mall.

When Abdiraham pleaded guilty last month to two counts of first-degree assault, he said his Nov. 12 attack was answering the call of jihad — a fight against the enemies of Islam, according to the Hennepin County attorney’s office.

“I want justice for my family and I want everybody to see this for what it is, a terror attack,” John Sanchez said in his statement.

RELATED: ‘A chaotic scene and a lot of blood’: Man charged in Mall of America stabbing

County Attorney Mike Freeman pushed for the consecutive sentences so each victim could see he was getting individual justice.

“There has been statements that he was told by Allah to do this,” Freeman said of Abdiraham. “It doesn’t matter to us what deity you believe in or no deity at all, if you seriously injure someone, we will prosecute you and, if successful, seek a long prison term.”

When asked by Meyer if he had anything to say, Abdiraham said no.