The Marine’s father had already told the courtroom full of grieving families all about his son, Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz.
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Mark Schmitz spoke of the legacy Jared left as one of 13 U.S. troops killed in a catastrophic attack during the United States’ frenzied withdrawal from Afghanistan, about the gaping hole left in Jared’s family since his death at the hands of Islamic State terrorists.
Then he turned to directly address Mohammad Sharifullah, the only person convicted in connection with the 2021 attack at Kabul airport’s Abbey Gate.
“I forgive you,” Schmitz told the man, seated just feet away.
“You will face the judgment of this court, but I will not live with hatred,” Schmitz said. “I will not allow what happened at the Abbey Gate to turn me into a man that my son would not recognize.”
The room wept, one of many emotional moments during Sharifullah’s sentencing hearing before Judge Anthony J. Trenga in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, where about half of the 13 service members’ families gave moving victim impact statements. They called Sharifullah “evil” and a “coward.” Some asked the judge to rule not just on behalf of the 13 who died — but for every U.S. service member killed by terrorism in the 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001.
After hearing their pleas for justice, Trenga sentenced Sharifullah to 20 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release — the maximum punishment for the terrorism charge of which he was convicted earlier this year. Sharifullah is the only defendant to face trial in the United States over the deadly terrorist strike.
“There is no doubt in this case that the defendant is a dedicated terrorist,” Trenga said from the bench. The judge told the courtroom that Sharifullah, a 28-year-old Afghani national, had spent more than a decade as an active member of the Islamic State-Khorasan (ISIS-K), aiding in at least 15 deadly terrorist attacks — including the suicide bombing in Kabul outside the Hamid Karzai International Airport’s Abbey Gate.
Trenga called the Kabul attack, which also killed about 170 Afghans, “unfathomable,” and said Sharifullah had shown “no remorse.” The judge said that if he could impose separate sentences for each of the bombing’s victims, “I would gladly do that.”
The jury convicted Sharifullah of helping ISIS leaders that day but did not find that the prosecution had sufficiently proved that the man’s role in the attack directly resulted in the American deaths, so the judge was limited by federal statute.
When given the opportunity to address the court, Sharifullah declined.
After the hearing, one of his attorneys, federal public defender Geremy Kamens, said in a statement that hearing from families of the slain service members was “heartbreaking.”
“Those families deserve to see the people responsible for that attack brought to justice — but the jury heard the evidence, and did not find that Mr. Sharifullah was among them,” Kamens said in the statement.
In court Wednesday, Sharifullah’s legal team repeated the argument they made at trial: that the Abbey Gate attack was devastating, but he wasn’t the mastermind.
“The question in this case is not really about what happened, but who is responsible,” Kamens said at trial. “The U.S. government got the wrong man.”
President Donald Trump announced Sharifullah’s capture last year during a joint address to Congress, calling the detained man “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”
But the case presented by the U.S. government at trial described Sharifullah’s role in the Abbey Gate bombing as much lower-level.
Justice Department prosecutors alleged that Sharifullah had scouted a transportation route for the suicide bomber — later identified by U.S. officials as Abdul Rahman al-Logari — that avoided Taliban and U.S. checkpoints at the airport and other law enforcement, information Sharifullah divulged to FBI agents in early 2025 after he was captured in Pakistan.
Sharifullah shared hours of information about his ISIS-K involvement with the FBI during a series of five interviews, some of which were conducted while Sharifullah was in the custody of Pakistani intelligence forces, who have a documented history of using torture and committing human rights violations. At trial, the man’s attorneys said Sharifullah’s admission was a false confession given under duress because he feared his family — also captured by Pakistani authorities — would be harmed if he did not take responsibility for Abbey Gate.
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After nearly a week of testimony and two days of deliberations, the jury ultimately found Sharifullah guilty of conspiring to provide material support to ISIS-K but deadlocked on whether his scouting role — and the information he provided — resulted in the airport deaths.
If the jury had convicted Sharifullah of the full charge he faced, he could have been sentenced to life in prison.
“Mohammad Sharifullah has dedicated his life to violence and murder for the sake of hatred,’” Theo Stamos, first assistant U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, said in a statement. “We cannot restore the lives he has taken, but we can bring a measure of justice to the families who lost so much on that day.”
The verdict was a rare setback for the Justice Department in a high-profile terrorism case that Trump had used as a core rallying cry while campaigning for a second term in the White House.
The Taliban’s reclaiming of Afghanistan, and the devastation at Abbey Gate, became an enduring sore spot for the Biden administration. During his first term, Trump had struck a deal with the Taliban that called for the removal of all U.S. troops — undermining the U.S.-backed Afghan government. Biden followed through on the deal, ordering the Pentagon to plan for a complete withdrawal of American forces.
Amid the withdrawal, Kabul fell to the Taliban. American troops were deployed to help evacuate tens of thousands of locals, many of whom had been U.S. allies during the war. The blast went off on Aug. 26, 2021, as Afghans desperately seeking safety flooded the key airport entrance.
Killed in the attack were 11 Marines: Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, 20; Sgt. Nicole Gee, 23; Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, 31; Cpl. Hunter Lopez, 22; Lance Cpl. Dylan R. Merola, 20; Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum, 20; Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20; Cpl. Daegan William-Tyeler Page, 23; Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, 25; Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, 22; and Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, 20. Also killed were Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, 23, and Navy Hospital Corpsman Maxton Soviak, 22.
On the campaign trail, Trump was backed by family members of some of the fallen U.S. troops who organized on his behalf with the help of Republican officials.
Some of those same family members were among those who spoke at Sharifullah’s sentencing Wednesday.
Darin Hoover, father of Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, said his son was raised from a young age to understand the word “patriot” and the symbolic freedom of the American flag.
“He’s my hero and always will be,” Hoover said. “You have the blood of American Marines, sailors and soldiers on your hands.”
Alicia Lopez, mother of Cpl. Hunter Lopez, said the jury had “failed” her son.
Paula Knauss-Selph, mother of Sgt. Ryan Knauss, refused to use Sharifullah’s name when she asked the Lord to “give this man mercy he did not give to my son.”
Christy Shamblin, mother-in-law of Sgt. Nicole Gee, said her family now spends most holidays at Arlington National Cemetery. She found surprising comfort, she said, in witnessing Sharifullah’s trial — acknowledging the irony that he will serve his punishment with rights granted him by a country that Gee died defending.
And Schmitz, who founded the Freedom 13 nonprofit in Jared’s memory, wanted Sharifullah to know he won’t get the final word.
“The bomb killed my son. It did not kill what my son stood for,” Schmitz told the court. “Semper Fi, son. Dad loves you.”
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