US veteran pleads not guilty to trying to help Daesh

NEW YORK — A US Air Force veteran pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to trying to provide support for Daesh terror group.

Tairod Nathan Webster Pugh, of Neptune, New Jersey, entered his plea at a hearing in the federal court in Brooklyn, New York. US District Judge Nicholas Garaufis told attorneys to be ready for trial in July.

If convicted, Pugh could face up to 35 years in prison.

According to prosecutors, Pugh, 47, a former avionics instrument system specialist in the Air Force, tried to join Daesh in January by travelling from Egypt to Turkey and trying to cross the border into Syria.

Turkish authorities sent him back to Egypt, which detained him and subsequently deported him to the United States, prosecutors said.

US federal agents found recent Internet searches on Pugh's laptop and other devices for "borders controlled by Islamic State [Daesh]" and a propaganda video by the group, according to prosecutors.

Pugh served in the Air Force from 1986 to 1990 and converted to Islam after moving to San Antonio, Texas, in 1998, becoming "increasingly radical in his beliefs" in following years, according to a criminal complaint filed when he was arrested in January.

While Pugh was working as a mechanic for American Airlines, a co-worker told the FBI that Pugh "sympathised with Osama Bin Laden, felt that the 1998 bombings of US embassies were justified and expressed anti-American sentiment," the complaint said.

In 2002, an associate of Pugh also told the FBI that Pugh had expressed interest in going to Chechnya to fight, the complaint said.

Nonetheless, Pugh worked on aircraft avionics as an army contractor for DynCorp International in Iraq from October 2009 to March 2010, prosecutors said.

In the weeks before travelling to Egypt, he had been fired from a job as an airplane mechanic in the Middle East and had been living abroad for a year, according to prosecutors.