A former college professor was sentenced on Wednesday to more than 11 years in prison for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury four years ago about the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Abdelhaleem Ashqar, a former associate professor of business at Howard University, was taken into custody immediately after his sentencing in the U.S. District Court in Chicago, according to the Associated Press.

Mr. Ashqar was acquitted, along with a co-defendant, on a charge of financing Hamas. But phone records showed that the former professor had communicated with the extremist group, and he was convicted of obstruction of justice and criminal contempt for refusing to testify. The case was based on a federal investigation of Hamas in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. —Don Troop