Pharmacy Graduate Gets 17 1/2 Years for Aid to Al-Qaeda

[AUz]

Mehanna, a 29-year-old pharmacist from Sudbury, Massachusetts, emailed friends, downloaded videos, translated and posted documents on the web, and traveled to and from Yemen in 2004.

No evidence was presented in court directly linking him to a terrorist group. He never hatched a plot – indeed, he objected when a friend (who went on to become a government informer and has never been charged with anything) proposed plans to stage violent attacks within the United States. He never had a weapon. He did lie to the FBI. And he has just been sentenced by US District Court Judge George O’Toole to 17.5 years in a supermax prison on various material support to terrorism charges.


David Stone and members of his Hutaree anti-government militia amassed a huge arsenal of weapons, including the ingredients for explosives, and allegedly plotted to kill a police officer and bomb his funeral. A federal judge in Michigan said they were just venting and exercising their First Amendment rights.


It's official. There is a Muslim exemption to the First Amendment. - On Liberty blog - Boston.com

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The Hutarees had weapons, practiced military tactics, and had plans to kill government officials. They got off without any punishment. Tarek (A Muslim) had none of the above. He got almost two decades in jail as punishment.

See the link ... Muslims are discriminated and persecuted in the West but no one cares. Even media doesn't give a crap about it , most of the times. A black kid got shot and whole America went all gaga over it...but an Iraqi woman was murdered in her home most probably due to a hate crime (due to her Hijab) and media barely mentioned it...Most Americans don't even know that this event happened.

The term "Post-racism era in America" is not exactly true ...

 

[somebozo]

This is beginning of new crusade..fabricating false charges against Muslims and vilifying them as some kind of savage terrorist. This is what the Europeans did as Richard planned to plunder Jerusalem.

 

[Desert Fox]

Muslims should not live in this racist country and they should return to their native lands as a sign of protest.

I pray to dear God that you indians go through extreme racism and hate that we Muslims have been going through and continue to do so despite majority of us not having anything to do with terrorists or their ideology, maybe then you will realize what it feels like when some @$$hole makes comments similar to yours.

 

[Rusty]

Muslims should not live in this racist country and they should return to their native lands as a sign of protest.

This is such a sick and twisted mentality.
You people can't hide your hatred and bigotry even when it's a clear case of injustice.

 

[Roybot]

Inb4 Hindu prosecutor.

 

[VCheng]

Instead of a blog entry, please read the full story:

=====================================

from: Pharmacy Graduate Gets 17 1/2 Years for Aid to Al-Qaeda - Businessweek

Bloomberg News
Pharmacy Graduate Gets 17 1/2 Years for Aid to Al-Qaeda
By Janelle Lawrence and Don Jeffrey on April 12, 2012

Tarek Mehanna, a Massachusetts pharmacy-school graduate convicted of conspiring to give material support to al-Qaeda, was sentenced to 17 1/2 years in prison today after calling a prosecutor a liar in court.

U.S. District Judge George O’Toole imposed the sentence in Boston, where Mehanna was convicted by a jury in December. Prosecutors said he translated terrorist materials from Arabic into English, including a manual titled “39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad.”

“I am frankly concerned by the defendant’s apparent lack of remorse,” the judge said. “His position in this respect as we have seen this morning has a quality of defiance.”

Mehanna, 29, was also convicted of making false statements, providing material support to a terrorist organization and conspiring to kill in a foreign country. U.S. prosecutors asked for a 25-year prison sentence.

Prosecutors said Mehanna traveled to Yemen in 2004 to seek training as a terrorist in order to kill American soldiers. After failing to get the training, they said, he edited and translated recruitment materials for al-Qaeda, the organization that planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington.

After Assistant U.S. Attorney Aloke Chakravarty told the judge that Mehanna’s claim that the government sent an undercover agent to entrap him was untrue, Mehanna shouted, “You’re a liar. Sit down.”

Talk to Court

In an address to the court, Mehanna became increasingly angry. He showed a photo of a 14-year-old girl he said had been raped and killed by U.S. soldiers and asserted that they were the terrorists.

Mehanna’s attorneys said in court filings that “no harm occurred to a single individual” as a result of his actions. “Espousing unpopular political views, even the views of al- Qaeda, is not illegal,” they said.

J.W. Carney, a lawyer for Mehanna, told reporters after the hearing that he will file an appeal next week and argued that the prosecutors’ references to the Sept. 11 attacks prejudiced the jury. He also said that an unidentified female juror, whom the judge wouldn’t allow to comment during the hearing, wanted to speak out against a lengthy sentence.

Maximum Sentence

Mehanna’s lawyers asked for a maximum sentence of 6 1/2 years, saying in a court filing that it would “promote respect for the law, provide just punishment, afford adequate deterrence and protect the public.”

U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz told reporters, “We’re disappointed it wasn’t longer. He came across as an angry defiant young man.”

Mehanna has been held in solitary confinement for more than two years. He probably will serve his sentence under the “severe” conditions of a so-called Supermax prison, his lawyers said in court papers.

The judge also sentenced Mehanna to seven years of supervision after his release from prison. He said he rejected federal guidelines that called for life in prison because Mehanna had no prior criminal record and hadn’t engaged in specific terrorist acts.

Mehanna, who lived in Sudbury, Massachusetts, with his family, earned a doctorate from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Science. He was hired to set up a pharmaceutical division for diabetes at a medical center in Saudi Arabia, according to court filings. His father, Ahmed, emigrated from Egypt in 1981 and is a professor at the college. As a teenager Tarek Mehanna played guitar in a grunge rock band, according to court papers.

“The evidence showed the defendant to be a serious young man interested in how he would form his life to please God,” the judge said today. “He became, however, consumed with a religious enthusiasm that was at once partly admirable and partly horrifying. As to the events in this case, the horrifying part came to dominate.”

The case is U.S. v. Mehanna, 09-10017, U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts (Boston).

To contact the reporters on this story: Janelle Lawrence in Boston at jmlawrence@mac.com; Don Jeffrey in New York at djeffrey1@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Hytha at mhytha@bloomberg.net.

=================================

Please note that the verdict and sentencing will be appealed.

 

[KS]

I pray to dear God that you indians go through extreme racism and hate that we Muslims have been going through and continue to do so despite majority of us not having anything to do with terrorists or their ideology, maybe then you will realize what it feels like when some @$$hole makes comments similar to yours.

I can understand your frustration though....lol

But dont worry we have no need, nor cause to undergo that.

We don't have crazies in our community who sling bombs on their vest vest and threaten the newspaper that draws one of our deities nor we hold up posters saying "Death to soldiers" while they are returning home from war trip, nor some of our radicals hijack a plane and kill 3000 Americans or so on.

Islamophobia is on the rise not because non-Muslims are interested in that - but because the Muslims themselves contribute to its rise through their actions. Not all, but definitely some of them. Blame those crazies in your community and not others. The others could not care less about the majority good people when you cannot even control the minority crazies who give a bad name.

 

[darkinsky]

america promised to make case for raymond davis back home,nothing happened, the america physcopath who killed 16 afghanis is also not guilty...... just relieved off his duty

 

[junk]

I pray to dear God that you indians go through extreme racism and hate that we Muslims have been going through and continue to do so despite majority of us not having anything to do with terrorists or their ideology, maybe then you will realize what it feels like when some @$$hole makes comments similar to yours.

there time will come

 

[darkinsky]

I can understand your frustration though....lol

But dont worry we have no need, nor cause to undergo that.

We don't have crazies in our community who sling bombs on their vest vest and threaten the newspaper that draws one of our deities nor we hold up posters saying "Death to soldiers" while they are returning home from war trip, nor some of our radicals hijack a plane and kill 3000 Americans or so on.

Islamophobia is on the rise not because anyone is interested in that - but because the Muslims themselves contribute to its rise through their actions. Not all, but definitely some of them. Blame those crazies in your community and not others. The others could not care less about the majority good people when you cannot even control the minority crazies who give a bad name.

well KS before trolling you should know racism doesnt know any bounds, what happened in australia, have you forgotten so easily, and how indian media and then the govt reacted?? have you forgotten?

 

[junk]

well KS before trolling you should know racism doesnt know any bounds, what happened in australia, have you forgotten so easily, and how indian media and then the govt reacted?? have you forgotten?

they must have been dalits,

 

[KS]

well KS before trolling you should know racism doesnt know any bounds, what happened in australia, have you forgotten so easily, and how indian media and then the govt reacted?? have you forgotten?

What happened in Australia was a general xenophobic acts of some idiotic neighbourhood bullies...no way Govt sponsored or not even supported by the majority of the Australians..

I'm not trolling...just stating the facts as they were...Truth is muslims dont integrate into other societies and think that integrating means anti-islam..I have seen people in this forum itself define "integration" as a synonym of "conversion"...thinking so you try to build more walls around you and with the acts of some of the crazzies from your community its fuels the hate of the natives..and why not ?

Please look inward why the world at large is growing wary of Muslims instead of silly conspiracy theories about the zionist world planning to persecute the innocent momin.

 

[Vinod2070]

Well, reverse hizrat from dar-ul-Islam to dar-ul-harb has not worked for some it seems.

They can always choose to do the straigh hijarat.

 

[TruthSeeker]

The title of this thread is first class trolling. Nothing that follows can possibly out-troll Mr. AUz's opening shot.

 

[Pak47]

Sure they don't... thats why the mosque close to ground zero still being built.