The Nazareth District Court sentenced Russian immigrant Valentin Mazlevski, who converted to Islam, to 38 months in prison for attempting to join the ISIS terrorist group in Syria. The court also fined him $2,800, to be paid within 90 days of the sentence, with the option to forgo the financial penalty in exchange for an additional 50 days in prison. Mazlevski, 40, was arrested in February 2017 in a joint operation by police and the Shin Bet security agency. His arrest came a few weeks after a failed attempt to fly from Israel to Turkey from where he allegedly planned to cross into Syria to join ISIS. Mazlevski lived with his wife in the Arab-Israeli town of Shibli–Umm al-Ghanam. He moved to Israel from Belarus in 1996 at age 18 and converted to Islam four years later, while he was serving in the Israel Defense Forces. Mazlevski used the "Khalifat" (Arabic for "caliphate"—ed) group of instant-messaging platform Telegram in 2016, Shin Bets indictment said. He expressed his desire to join ISIS in the group, whose members are ISIS members and supporters of Russian origin, and was instructed by one activist to go to Turkey and speak with him from there so he can help him in crossing the border into Syria. The activist purchased a one-way plane ticket to Turkey on behalf of Mazlevski, but he was prevented from leaving Israel after being questioned by security officials at Ben-Gurion Airport.