(Dallas Morning News) An Arlington teenager who tried to help a man join a Pakistani terrorist group has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison.
Michael Kyle Sewell, 18, pleaded guilty in May to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor gave him the maximum sentence Monday.
According to authorities, Sewell encouraged another man to join Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic extremist group based in Pakistan that wants to establish a caliphate in South Asia. The group was behind a series of attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed 166 people in 2008.
In November, Sewell conversed with the man — who is not named in court documents — through social media and advised him to join either Lashkar-e-Taiba or the Taliban. He gave the man the contact information for someone who could facilitate his travel to Pakistan.
