Terrorist sympathizers sentenced to 11 years in prison
Ali Yasin Ahmed, 31, and Mohamed Yusuf, 33, served four years in solitary confinement in the U.S., and were tortured in an African jail.
A Brooklyn judge Friday sentenced a pair of al-Shabaab militants to 11 years in prison — four years less than federal prosecutors had sought — in part because they were tortured in an African jail and have spent nearly four years in solitary confinement in the U.S.
Judge John Gleeson sharply rejected the government’s argument that the plea deal — for providing material support to a terror group — had taken into consideration the rough treatment that Ali Yasin Ahmed, 31, and Mohamed Yusuf, 33, endured.
Gleeson said determining the proper sentence was his job as a judge.
Defense lawyers David Stern and Susan Kellman had argued that their clients were freedom fighters for their homeland of Somalia, not terrorists.
Accused British terror suspect Madhi Hashi is to be sentenced at a later date.
“They’re a little bit of both,” Gleeson said in Brooklyn Federal Court.
"I don't have any doubt that when they are released they will return to some battlefield to seek jihad, and recruit others to join al-Shabaab," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Shreve Ariail.
Madhi Hash and his lawyer Mark S. DeMarco sit in Brooklyn Federal Court in New York in this courtroom sketch. Hashi, 25, said he pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Ariail acknowledged that the treatment both men were subjected to in an African jail after they were captured in Djibouti was "brief, unconscionable, and inappropriate."
A third defendant, Madhi Hashi, will be sentenced at a later date.
Source http://m.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/terrorist-sympathizers-sentenced-11-years-prison-article-1.2498473
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