Kentucky resident who fought for ISIS sentenced. ‘Violent jihad’
A Kentucky resident who fought overseas for a terrorist organization has been sentenced to eight years and five months in federal prison.
Mirsad Ramic, of Bowling Green, was convicted of providing material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, known as ISIS; conspiracy to support the organization; and receiving military training.
Chief U.S. District Judge Greg N. Stivers also fined Ramic $25,000 during sentencing on Monday.
Federal authorities said Ramic, 35, and two other men who had attended Western Kentucky University left the U.S. in June 2014 and went to Syria, where they joined ISIS.
Ramic received training and took part in fighting for ISIS — including in an area where the U.S. military was supporting opposition forces — and bragged on social media about firing anti-aircraft weapons at airplanes, according to court records.
He also published “incendiary” social media posts advocating violence and encouraging others to take part with ISIS in “violent jihad,” prosecutors said.
One of the men who went overseas with Ramic was killed.
Ramic’s attorney, federal public defender Scott T. Wendelsdorf, asked Stivers to sentence Ramic to the 40 months he has been in custody since being charged and returned to the U.S., meaning he would be released after sentencing.
Ramic, a Muslim from Bosnia, came to the U.S. in 2001 as a refugee after a brutal civil war tore the country apart and his father was murdered, according to a sentencing memorandum by Wendelsdorf.
Ramic was about 11 at the time. He and his family first lived in Kansas City and later in Bowling Green, and Ramic became a naturalized U.S. citizen, according to the court record.
Ramic had a difficult transition to life in America, where he was bullied and schools didn’t offer sufficient support, he told a psychologist who interviewed him.
As he searched for a sense of identity in his later teens and early 20s, Ramic explored his Muslim heritage and got into his religion in an “impassioned” way, attending a mosque, growing his hair and beard and learning Arabic, the psychologist reported.
That made him an ideal target for ISIS propaganda, including the call to come fight in Syria to defend fellow Muslims and live in an ideal Muslim society, the sentencing memo argued.
Ramic was not motivated by hatred of America, the licensed clinical psychologist, Patti van Eys, said in her report.
Once in Syria, however, he figured out the ISIS propaganda was lies and he ultimately renounced the organization and escaped to Turkey in 2015, according to his sentencing memo.
Because of his association with ISIS, Turkish authorities put him in prison for more than five years. He told van Eys he was tortured, beaten, deprived of food and medical treatment for injuries, and forced to drink urine.
Prosecutors said Ramic’s interview was self-serving and littered with inconsistencies and lies, and urged the judge to give it no weight.
Prosecutors sought a 50-year sentence for Ramic, arguing he willingly fought for a terrorist organization and has shown no remorse.
“His communications between his co-conspirators revealed his mindset dedicated to violent jihad and death to those who disagree with his version of religion,” prosecutors said in a sentencing memo.
Wendelsdorf told the Herald-Leader that Stivers sentenced Ramic to 168 months in prison but reduced the sentence by 67 months to account for the time he served in Turkey.
Ramic also will get credit against the remaining 101-month sentence for the 40 months he has been in custody since the FBI brought him back from overseas.
After Ramic finishes his prison sentence, the government almost certainly will revoke his citizenship and deport him to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Wendelsdorf said.
