Two Malaysian men jailed for 2 years for supporting ISIS

A Malaysian court on Wednesday sentenced two men, one of them an architect, to two years' imprisonment for trying to support dreaded Islamic State terror group in Syria.

Architect Mohd Syafrien Rasid and technician Mohamad Yusoffe Ishak, both aged 27, were arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport last year as they were trying to leave the country to support IS in Syria.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court ordered Syafrien and Yusoffe to serve their jail term beginning from the date of their arrest on September 25 last year. While pronouncing the sentence, judge Justice Kamardin Hashim took into account public interest and the mitigation by the defence that both the accused were young offenders and did not have previous criminal records.

Syafrien and Yusoffe pleaded guilty to the alternative charge, which was taking a flight from the Kuala Lumpur International Airport to reach Syria via Istanbul in an attempt to give support to IS. The two were influenced by religious extremism and planned to join jihad after watching online videos of the IS movement in Syria, the court reports said.