A former Mayo Clinic researcher was sentenced Friday in a Minnesota federal court to 18 years in prison for attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, according to reports.
Muhammad Masood, 31, a licensed medical doctor in Pakistan who worked as a research coordinator under an H1-B visa in Rochester, Minnesota, “used an encrypted messaging application to facilitate his travel overseas to join a terrorist organization” between January 2020 and March 2020, a statement by the Department of Justice said. “Masood made multiple statements about his desire to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS), and he pledged his allegiance to the designated terrorist organization and its leader. Masood also expressed his desire to conduct “lone wolf” terrorist attacks in the United States,” the statement continued. (RELATED: Doctoral Student Built Bomb-Carrying Drone, Filled Out ISIS Application, Prosecutor Claims)
Muhammad Masood, a 30-year-old fmr Mayo Clinic researcher who pledged allegiance to ISIS &told FBI informants he wanted to carry out lone wolf attacks in the US pleads guilty to terrorism chargehttps://t.co/FmisB238cQ
— Ibchele (@ibchele) August 21, 2022
Masood was due to travel to Syria from Chicago via Jordan in February 2020 but Jordan suspended incoming flights due to the coronavirus pandemic, per the statement. Masood then reportedly went to Minneapolis-St. Paul (MSP) International Airport March 19, 2020 to catch a flight bound for Los Angeles, where he hoped “to meet up with an individual who he believed would assist him with travel via cargo ship to deliver him to ISIS territory.” Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers arrested him at MSP and he “pleaded guilty on Aug. 16, 2022, to attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization,” the statement noted.
Masood was working with the Mayo Clinic in Rochester before his arrest, the Star Tribune reported.
“First and foremost, you are sitting in this court as a convicted terrorist. That’s the way it is,” Senior U.S. District Judge Paul A. Magnuson said to Masood, rejecting Masood’s claim via his attorney of bipolar disorder exacerbated by a failed marriage, per the report. Masood apologized to the judge, appealing to be imprisoned in Massachusetts to be closer to his brother. Magnuson, who initially considered imposing the maximum sentence of 20 years, ruled that Masood would serve an 18-year sentence instead, given Masood’s participation in psychotherapy sessions and cooperation with authorities at the Sherburne County jail where he had been held for three and a half years since his arrest, the report noted.