Posted on 03/02/2007 4:35:45 PM PST by RDTF
NEW YORK — A man was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday for conspiring to blow up a busy Manhattan subway station.
James Elshafay, had pleaded guilty and testified against the mastermind of the plot, Shahawar Matin Siraj, at a trial last year in federal court in Brooklyn.
Elshafay, the son of an Egyptian father and Irish mother, testified that after meeting Siraj at an Islamic bookstore, they hatched an initial scheme — later abandoned — to blow up the four bridges connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn and New Jersey. He also told jurors at Siraj's trial that he was taking medication for depression and schizophrenia.
Siraj and Elshafay were caught with crude diagrams of the Herald Square subway station on Aug. 27, 2004, the eve of the Republican National Convention. Prosecutors said the men wanted to avenge the abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.
At the time of the arrests, authorities said that the men never obtained explosives and had not been linked to known terrorist groups.
Siraj was sentenced last year to 30 years in prison.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
ping
That Five Years will teach them Terrorists not to Mess With the USA!
he'd have gotten more than five years if he'd stuck up the token booth at Herald Square. Lock 'em all up and throw away the keys.
With a Five Year sentence he won't see the light of day until early 2009.
Someone has to review stuff these days..
good thing he wasn't an LEO shooting a smuggler in the butt...he'd be doing eleven!
Soldiers caught behind enemy lines (U.S.A.'s borders) without uniforms lose all rights: if Fellow Freepers think the sentence too little, maybe these laws in the same state -- New York -- are too much. Although adamently against the death penalty for murder, I do believe in it for treason or, "Soldiers caught behind enemy lines without uniforms.
Five years for trying to blow up a NY subway station huh. It's a good thing he wasn't a US Border Guard shooting a Mehican drug dealer in the ass,he would have gotten almost 3 times that sentence !!!
Five years doesn't sound like much but it seems it was an ill-formed plot and he cooperated in the prosecution of the "mastermind" (who got 30 years) so maybe it makes sense after all.
Muslim dad and irish mom -- now there's a guy genetically predisposed to be involved with things that go boom!
It's kinda weird for the justice system to impose lighter sentence for heavier crimes and heavy sentence for lighter crimes. I hope sentencing for a crime should include common sense too..
Only 5 years???
Same thing I thought.
5 years is his reduced sentence in exchange for testifying against the ringleader
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