A former soldier was sentenced to 45 years in prison on Friday for planning a “jihadist attack” on his fellow soldiers in his Army unit.
A Justice Department (DOJ) release states 24-year-old Ethan Melzer, a man from Louisville, Ky., pleaded guilty in June to trying to murder U.S. service members, providing and attempting to provide material support for terrorists and illegally transmitting national defense information.
Court documents state Melzer planned the attack in the days before being deployed to Turkey and sent details about his unit like its location, movements and security, to a white supremacist, neo-Nazi, pro-jihadist group called the Order of the Nine Angles.
The release states Melzer is a member of the organization, which spreads antisemitic and Satanic beliefs, pushes for violence to end Western civilization and has expressed support for Nazis like Adolf Hitler and Islamic jihadists like Osama bin Laden.
Melzer joined the Army around 2018 in an effort to infiltrate it as a member of the order, according to the DOJ.
