A 22-year-old Seattle man who attempted to travel to the Middle East to join an Islamic militant group was sentenced to four years in prison on Tuesday.
Elvin Hunter Bgorn Williams was arrested by the FBI last year at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport while attempting to board a flight to Egypt.
He had planned to join an ISIS training camp in the Sinai Desert, court records show. He was charged with aiding a designated foreign terrorist organization.
Due to his past and present poor mental health, Williams’ sentence was reduced from the original 15 years requested by federal prosecutors to four years imprisonment with 15 years of supervised release.
“Mr. Williams continues to pose a risk to the community. It will be critically important that he be closely supervised after he is released from prison.” U.S. Attorney Nick Brown said in a press release.
His attorneys, Mohammad Hamoudi and Corey Endo, said the sentence reflects their client’s vulnerabilities, young age, and mental health.
“We believe his mental health issues made him vulnerable to the predations of the government informants who encouraged and facilitated Mr. Williams’ actions,” they added.
Williams pleaded guilty to the charge in March, which carries a maximum prison term of 20 years.
Identified as ISIS
According to the plea agreement, Williams identified himself as early as 2020 as a member of ISIS to family and friends. He also posted an online video of himself pledging allegiance to the terror group.
The Islamic terrorist group al-Qaida became a designated terrorist organization in October 2004, when the U.S. secretary of state officially designated the group as such. Almost ten years later, this was amended to include affiliated groups and aliases, such as the Islamic State group of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), according to filed complaint against Williams.
FBI investigators, poising as ISIS recruiters, were alerted to Williams’ intentions when he began messaging them online in 2021 about his travel plans. The plea agreement states they then requested he travel to the Sinai Desert to “fight with ISIS”.
“Mr. Williams proved by his actions he was willing to join the Islamic State in hopes of furthering their ideology through violence,” Richard A. Collodi, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Seattle field office, said in a news release.
“He took concrete steps to fund his activities, procure equipment, and travel to the Middle East.”
In May 2021, after pawning a laptop to fund his travel, Williams obtained a passport. Later that month, he booked an airline ticket from Seattle to Egypt via Amsterdam. Williams was arrested by agents in May 2021 at Sea-Tac Airport after presenting a boarding pass for a flight to Cairo.
Online Activity
Williams first came under scrutiny as a teenager when he was living in California. His mother contacted the FBI following remarks he made about wanting to fight for ISIS but “no longer felt that way”. At the time, the FBI chose not to initiate a formal investigation, according to an internal memo.
However, an investigation was later opened in 2020 by the agency after monitoring his online activity.
At the ruling, the judge asked for Williams to be placed at a prison in Sheridan, Oregon.
“Sadly, this case is far from unique,” said the prosecutors’ sentencing memorandum. “ISIS and other terrorist groups engage in the recruitment of would-be supporters using online propaganda communication tools. Far too many U.S. persons fall prey to this recruitment and attempt to travel to fight with terrorist groups overseas or seek to commit local attacks in the name of terrorist organizations.”
