Former Brooklyn resident sentenced to life in prison for aiding the Islamic State group as a sniper

New York (AP) — A former New York stock broker who fled his job and family to fight alongside Islamic State militants in Syria, then maintained his allegiance to the extremist group throughout his trial, was sentenced to life in prison on Tuesday.

Ruslan Maratovich Asainov, who served as a sniper and instructor for the Islamist militant group at the height of its power, sat smiling in the Brooklyn courtroom, giving a thumbs-up and stroking his bushy beard while a judge read the sentence.

His own court-appointed lawyer, Susan Kellman, declined to seek a lighter sentence, emphasizing that her client was not interested in distancing himself from Islamic State fighters in exchange for leniency.

“It’s rare that I begin my sentencing remarks by saying I agree with the government,” Kellman said. “That’s who he is. This is what he fervently believes.

Asainov, a 47-year-old U.S. citizen born in Kazakhstan, was living in Brooklyn in late 2013 when he abandoned his young daughter and wife to fight alongside the Islamic State group in Syria.

After training as a sniper, he participated in crucial battles that allowed the militant group to seize territory and establish its self-proclaimed caliphate based on a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law. He rose to the rank of “emir,” or leader, then trained more than 100 aspiring snipers, acting as a “force multiplier” for the Islamic State group’s “bloody and brutal campaign,” prosecutors say. .

Asainov told law enforcement that he did not remember how many people he had killed. But he spoke proudly of his participation in the violent jihad, boasting that his students had killed enemies.

“He chose to view murder as both a means and an end,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Haggans said during sentencing. “He clings to this bad cause today.”

Asainov did not participate in his own trial, refusing to appear before the judge or jury. In his Brooklyn jail cell, he hung a makeshift Islamic State flag above his desk and called his mother on a recorded line describing his lack of repentance.

Asainov was convicted earlier this year of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and causing at least one death, among other charges. He is among dozens of Americans – and thousands of foreign fighters around the world – who have responded to calls from Islamic State militants to join the fighting in Iraq and Syria since 2011.

Mirsad Kandic, a Brooklyn resident who recruited Asainov and others to join the Islamic State group, was sentenced to life in prison this summer.

At Asainov's trial, his ex-wife testified that he had once doted on their young daughter. But around 2009, she says, he got carried away with extremist interpretations of Islamic law, quitting his job as a stock trader, throwing out his daughter's toys and forbidding his wife from putting up a Christmas tree.

In late 2013, he took a one-way flight from New York to Istanbul, eventually arriving in Syria with Kandic's help. He had occasional contact with his wife, boasting of his ties to “the most atrocious terrorist organization in the world” and warning that he might have her executed.

He was captured in 2019 by the Syrian Democratic Forces during the Islamic State group's last stand in a small Syrian village near the border with Iraq, then handed over to the United States.

In their sentencing memo, federal prosecutors said Asainov should face the maximum sentence of life in prison, both because of the nature of his crimes and the fact that he did not show “one iota remorse, doubt or reflection on past mistakes.

On Tuesday, Judge Nicholas Garaufis said he agreed with prosecutors.

“It is difficult for the court to understand or sympathize with what we saw in this trial,” he said.