SACRAMENTO, California — A 34-year-old Russian national in Sacramento has been charged with trying to support a foreign terrorist organization, according to the Department of Justice.
Murat Kurashev of Sacramento allegedly attempted to give financial support to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a designated terrorist organization.
A federal grand jury charged Kurashev on Thursday, February 18. He was arrested by agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and is currently in custody. The Department of Justice did not say when he would have his first court appearance.
According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the group Kurashev tried to aid, HTS or “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant,” was added to the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations in May 2018, and "was formed in Syria in 2011 as al-Qaeda’s affiliate within the opposition to the Assad regime."
Kurashev now faces 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, said U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott's office in a press release. The office also said that Assistant United States Attorney Heiko P. Coppola and Dmitriy Slavin, a Trial Attorney in the Department of Justice’s Counterterrorism Section, are prosecuting the case. No other details are available at this time.
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