A Kosovo man has been extradited from Malaysia to Virginia to face charges that he hacked into a computer system and supplied the Islamic State with the personal details of more than 1,000 U.S. service members and federal employees.
Ardit Ferizi, 20, made his first court appearance Thursday before Magistrate Judge Ivan Davis in Alexandria, Virginia, after being taken into U.S. custody the previous day. He has been provided with an Albanian interpreter and is expected back in court Friday.
Between June and August 2015, Mr. Ferizi broke into the computer system of an unidentified American company and stole sensitive data he supplied to Junaid Hussain, a hacker who spearheaded social media operations for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, a federal indictment unsealed in October states.
Approximately 1,351 military personnel and government workers were then included on a “hit list” of American targets circulated widely by the terror group “for the purpose of encouraging terrorist attacks against those individuals,” the Justice Department said.
Mr. Ferizi has been charged with providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, as well as computer hacking and identity theft violations. If convicted, he faces a maximum prison sentence of 35 years.
“As alleged, Ardit Ferizi is a terrorist hacker who provided material support to ISIL by stealing the personally identifiable information of U.S. service members and federal employees and providing it to ISIL for use against those employees,” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said in October when the indictment was unsealed last year. “This arrest demonstrates our resolve to confront and disrupt ISIL’s efforts to target Americans, in whatever form and wherever they occur.”
Hussain was killed by a U.S. airstrike in August.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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