Tennessee man charged for alleged attempt to provide ISIS with material

A Tennessee man was convicted for an alleged attempt to provide ISIS with material Thursday.

“On Oct. 19, following an eight-day trial, a jury convicted Benjamin Carpenter, 31, of Knoxville, Tennessee, aka Abu Hamza, of attempting to provide material support to ISIS, a foreign terrorist organization,” a Department of Justice press release read.

“In 2020 and 2021, Carpenter contacted an individual he believed to be affiliated with ISIS’s central media bureau and provided translation services for a project intended to relaunch Al-Hayat Media Center, ISIS’s official foreign-language media arm,” the release later continued.

The release said Carpenter, 31, of Knoxville, Tenn. faces “up to 20 years in prison and a lifetime of supervised release.” He has yet to be sentenced.

“According to evidence presented at trial, Carpenter served as the leader of Ahlut-Tawhid Publications, an international organization of pro-ISIS “munasirin” (i.e., supporters), dedicated to translating, producing and distributing ISIS propaganda throughout the world,” the release said

“For years, Carpenter, using his alias ‘Abu Hamza,’ published a large body of ISIS media, including his weekly newsletter ‘From Dabiq to Rome,’ a periodical that, among other things, celebrated the deaths of American soldiers, glorified suicide bomber, and called for open war against the United States and its Western allies,” the release continued.