A Canadian man who was radicalized online, uprooted his life and joined the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, rising to a top position in the terrorist group’s English-language propaganda arm, was sentenced Friday to life in prison, The Washington Post reported.

Mohammed Khalifa, 39, was the English-language narrator in approximately 15 Islamic State propaganda videos, including some of its most influential and violent fare, prosecutors said.

But he also had a starring role.

Khalifa admitted that he appears in the final scenes of two documentary-length Islamic State videos executing Syrian soldiers who had been forced to dig their own graves.

Khalifa pleaded guilty in December to conspiring to provide material support to terrorism resulting in death. Prosecutors asked for the maximum penalty of life in prison. Khalifa’s attorneys had requested a sentence of 20 years, noting that he had killed two Syrian soldiers but no Americans, and that he had a wife and three children. The text of the statute under which Khalifa was charged does not require that victims who died be American.

Khalifa was born in Saudi Arabia, lived in Canada from a young age, earned a college degree in computer systems technology in Toronto, and then started watching online videos during the Arab Spring that eventually led him to Syria, Khalifa stated in plea documents.

Khalifa admitted he joined the Islamic State in 2013 and was captured in 2019 after a firefight with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

In online communications, Khalifa referred to journalists and humanitarian workers being targeted by the Islamic State as “disbelievers” with whom the militant group “had no covenant.”

Khalifa was captured in January 2019 and turned over to U.S. custody at the end of September 2019.