From Gyro King To ISIS

When news came out last week that three Brooklyn men had been arrested for conspiring to aid ISIS, including a vague plot to plant a bomb in Coney Island, it sent waves of concern through a number of communities — and now, it turns out, there’s a connection to our neighborhood… at the Gyro King.

One of those implicated is 24-year-old Abdurasul Hasanovich Juraboev, who had come to the attention of law enforcement in August 2014 for a posting he made on an Uzbek-language website that propagates ISIS ideology. An Uzbek citizen who moved to the U.S. in 2011, he sought a job at the Foster Avenue location of the 24-hour gyro shop, just off Coney Island Avenue, back in June, according to the New York Times, which notes Juraboev spent long shifts chopping vegetables in the basement.

“He liked to live in his own world,” Gyro King owner Zakarya Khan told the Times, adding that he was a good employee who was always on time and who worked hard. He told the New York Post, though, that in recent weeks Juraboev had grown more reserved.

Then on Tuesday of last week, Juraboev told his boss that Wednesday would be his last day at the job — but instead, he was arrested.

The New Yorker stopped by the Gyro King to get locals’ takes on the secret lives of young people in the area — if there is any, that is, as their was some disagreement. One man at a visa service shop on Coney Island Ave told them, “Young people here are good. They don’t go out drinking.” Meanwhile, an employee at a nearby gym (we’re guessing they mean Spartan) says that’s not entirely the case:

“To be honest with you? They all smoke,” he said, referring to marijuana. “You might think that it doesn’t happen, but, trust me, everybody does it.”

The Times notes that the suspects “did not stand out in their neighborhood, and they dressed in Western attire,” but in private, and sometimes on the internet, raged about the “wicked behavior around them.”

Juraboev and the other two men, Abror Habibov and Akhror Saidakhmetov, have been charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a terror group, according to officials. If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.