The organizer of a Virginia jihad network was sentenced to 20 years in prison and one of its members to 15 years yesterday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria. The organizer, Randall T. Royer, 31, sent a 30-page letter to U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, apologizing for breaking the law but emphasizing that he never meant to harm the United States or its citizens. John N. Nassikas III, his lawyer, said Royer, a Muslim civil rights activist, had taken up arms in Bosnia and Kashmir and “put his own life in jeopardy for those he felt were oppressed.” But federal prosecutors charged him with helping 10 other men train for armed struggle by playing paintball in rural Virginia, and sending some to a “terrorist camp” in Pakistan in hopes of aiding Muslim causes abroad. One of those causes was Kashmir’s struggle for independence from India, and when Royer joined the military in Kashmir, he violated a rarely enforced federal law prohibiting attacks on American allies. Full Story
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