Two men convicted of terrorism charges were each sentenced to 15 years in prison on Friday in Alabama, Reuters reported.
Randy "Rasheed" Wilson and Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, both in their mid-20s, received the maximum punishment after pleading guilty to conspiring to provide "material support to terrorists" earlier this year.
U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose said after doing extensive research on correspondence between the two men, she determined they created a "well-researched plan" to support terrorists overseas. DuBose said they also discussed killing Americans too.
Both men were arrested in different locations in Georgia, shortly before they planned to leave the country for Morocco to carry out their plans.
"Most people in this courtroom support people's right to have whatever beliefs they want," DuBose said. "But when a religion requires you to murder, that is crossing the line."
According to authorities, Wilson and Abukhdair met online in 2010. Abukhdair, a resident of Syracuse, New York, moved to Mobile to live with Wilson and his family in 2011 after living in Egypt, where he was jailed for similar crimes.
Prosecutors said in court that their friendship began after realizing they shared the same radical beliefs.
In 2011, undercover FBI agents began watching the men and listened to their discussions about where they could best defend Islam, eventually deciding on Mauritania.
Wilson's attorney claimed he was only guilty of thinking about crimes to commit, not actually going through with them.
"I ask you to punish Randy Wilson, not Osama bin Laden or any of these other people," said Wilson's attorney, Dom Soto. "This is basically a case of outing Randy Wilson because he said some terrible things."
Authorities also said Wilson was a friend and roommate of Omar Hammami, a native of Alabama who eventually became the senior leader in al Shabaab -- an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group responsible for the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya. Earlier this year, Hammami was killed in a gun battle in Somalia.
