An Australian accountant who undertook surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange for al Qaeda associates in Yemen and hoped to fight "in armed jihad" in overseas war zones has been sentenced in a US court to 18 years' jail.
Sabirhan Hasanoff, who was raised in Adelaide, had entered a guilty plea to a charge of providing material support, including financial support, equipment, and technical advice, to al Qaeda associates in Yemen.
"I'm very sorry for my conduct," he told the US District Court in Manhattan during Monday's sentencing.
"I should have known better, and I don't have any excuses."
The 37-year-old married father-of-three, who lived in Brooklyn, New York, and worked at top accounting firms KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers, was facing a sentence of up to 20 years' jail.
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Hasanoff's legal team had asked for a 13-year sentence.
Hasanoff, in a letter to Judge Kimba Wood, admitted undertaking surveillance of the New York Stock Exchange in 2008 for a Yemen-based man, nicknamed "The Doctor", who prosecutors described as a "career jihadist".
However, Hasanoff said the information he submitted had little detail that "deliberately provided nothing beyond what anyone could have learned from Google Earth, a tourist map or a brochure".
Hasanoff, a Muslim who only in recent years adopted an orthodox approach to Islam, provided money to contacts in Yemen in the hope of fighting overseas.
"While Mr Hasanoff provided those contacts with a substantial sum of cash over time, and performed a number of random and often (principally) mundane tasks for them, in the hopes that they might facilitate his travel for the purpose of engaging in armed jihad overseas, his lack of knowledge and access vastly reduced his chances of ever completing any of the charged offences," Hasanoff's lawyer wrote in a sentencing submission.
