A California man was arrested in Tunisia trying to enter Libya in order to join ISIS and provide material support to terrorists, and has recently been handed down terrorism charges, ABC News reported.
Bernard Raymond Augustine, 20, was arrested in Tunisia in February 2016 and recently returned to the United States. On Tuesday, Brooklyn federal prosecutors unveiled charges against him for attempting to provide material support to ISIS.
Augustine now faces a 20-year prison sentence and remains in federal custody, according to a Justice Department release.
Justice Department (Twitter)
Augustine was arrested in Tunisia in 2016 while taking a flight from San Francisco to Istanbul. He claimed he was going on vacation. He was sentenced to two years in a Tunisia prison before returning to the U.S.
Songs praising ISIS and messages sent to ISIS praising the terrorist group were found on his computer, ABC News reported. He viewed beheading and execution videos, as well as researched firearms and information on how Americans can join ISIS, the Modesto Bee reported.
“My purpose in life is to seek the ultimate justice. I see a lot of very wrong and truly evil things happening in this world, things you don’t know about, […] I’m not mad or mentally ill,” Augustine wrote in an email, the Modesto Bee reported.
“I really truly am on a path to fight for justice … I’m doing this so (you) will learn how to protect yourselves from the manipulation of the masters of evil and their lies. … The good people in this world bring balance and push back against evil. And give their lives freely in the process. Today in this day and age I believe this is the right path,” he added.
