Alabama Terrorism: Two Men Convicted On Terrorism Charges Get 15 Years In Prison
ByA federal judge in Alabama sentenced two men accused of "plotting to wage violent holy war overseas" to 15 years in prison each on Friday, Reuters reported.
U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose imposed the maximum punishment on 26-year-old Randy Lamar Wilson of Mobile and Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair, 29, who's originally from New York. She told Reuters the duos lack of remorse made it likely they would conspire to commit such acts again.
Wilson and Abukhdair pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to provide material support to terrorists.
Dubose told the court she listened to more than hundreds of hours of recorded conversations and read emails between Wilson and Abukhdair and concluded they had conceived a "well-researched plan" to support violent jihadists.
"Mr. Wilson seemed well informed as to where he could do the greatest service in the jihadist fight," she said.
The men were arrested in separate locations in Georgia in December 2012 while they were trying to leave the country and head to Morocco to put their "plan into motion."
"Most people in this courtroom support people's right to have whatever beliefs they want," she said. "But when a religion requires you to murder, that is crossing the line."
Federal prosecutors say the two men met online in 2010. Abukhdair, a resident of Syracuse, N.Y., moved to in with Wilson and his family a year later "after having been in Egypt. Where he was jailed on suspicion of similar crimes," Reuters reported.
Undercover FBI agents began watching the duo in 2011 and recorded discussions about where they could go to best defend Islam.
Wilson's attorney argued that his client was guilty only of thinking about crimes that he never carried out.
"I ask you to punish Randy Wilson, not Osama bin Laden or any of these other people," Wilson's attorney, Dom Soto told the court. "This is basically a case of outing Randy Wilson because he said some terrible things."