An Uzbek citizen has become the sixth individual to be charged by the United States in a conspiracy to support the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
U.S. prosecutors said on May 11 that they arrested Azizjon Rakhmatov, 28, and charged him with conspiracy in an indictment filed in federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
Prosecutors said Rakhmatov belonged to a domestic support network for individuals seeking to join IS, donating his money and working to raise funds to help others to travel to Syria to fight for the group.
The investigation began when Abdurasul Juraboev, an Uzbek national living in Brooklyn, came to law enforcement's attention after making a post on an Uzbek-language website that supported IS, prosecutors said.
The probe revealed that Juraboev and a Kazakh national living in New York, Akhror Saidakhmetov, planned to travel to Syria to join IS, prosecutors said.
Rakhmatov and co-defendants Abror Habibov, Dilkhayot Kasimov, and Akmal Zakirov helped fund the efforts of Saidakhmetov, who was arrested in February 2015 at John F. Kennedy International Airport attempting to fly to Istanbul, prosecutors said.
Jurboev pleaded guilty in August. Charges are pending against the others.
