A Minneapolis man has been sentenced to six months in federal prison for assaulting an 83-year-old Somali man.

George Thompson was sentenced Tuesday on one count of violating a federal hate crimes act named after Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr., two well-known hate crime victims.

Thompson pleaded guilty in August. Court papers say the 64-year-old former employee of the Transportation Security Administration told the older man he was going to kill him and chased him into a Minneapolis street on May 4, 2010.

Thompson admitted targeting the victim because he believed the man was a Muslim Somali. During the assault, prosecutors say Thompson told the man to go back to Africa and yelled ethnic and religious slurs at him.

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AP

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