Nigerian gets 22 years in U.S. prison for helping al Qaeda affiliate

A 35 year old Nigerian man, Lawal Babafemi was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a US court in Brooklyn yesterday August 12th for receiving weapons training from al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate and writing rap lyrics, among other contributions, for the group's English-language media operations.



Lawal ,who was extradited to the US from Nigeria after he was accused of the crime, pleaded guilty to the allegations in April 2014 but was sentenced yesterday



According to prosecutors, Lawal had traveled from Nigeria to Yemen twice between January 2010 and August 2011 to meet with leaders of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, known as AQAP and while in Yemen, Lawal who went by a pseudo name "Ayatollah Mustapha", worked on the terror groups media operations, including its magazine "Inspire,".



He and two others, a Vietnamese man named Minh Quang Pham and US citizen, Samir Khan who served as contributing writers and editors for the terror group magazine, produced the magazine.



Prosecutors say there are pictures of Lawal and his accomplices in the magazine wearing camouflage and holding rifles. It was also stated by the Prosecutors that the group's leadership, including Anwar al-Awlaki, paid Lawal almost $9,000 to recruit English speakers from Nigeria.