Portland, Oregon - A US judge sentenced a Somali-American man on Wednesday to 30 years in federal prison for trying to blow up a Christmas tree lighting celebration in Oregon four years ago with a fake bomb supplied by undercover government agents.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a naturalised US citizen and former Oregon State University student, was convicted in January 2013 of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, despite defence allegations of government entrapment.
“This is a very sad case, a sad, sad case for everyone,” US District Judge Garr King said in a Portland courtroom after handing down the sentence, which was 10 years less than what prosecutors had sought.
Mohamud, then 19, was arrested shortly after prosecutors say he attempted to use his cellphone to remotely detonate what he thought was a car bomb near a square crowded with thousands of people attending a Christmas-tree lighting ceremony in 2010.
The bomb, which was fake, had been supplied to him by undercover government agents posing as al-Qaeda operatives. There were no injuries, authorities said.
During a three-week trial in federal court that resulted in Mohamud's conviction, defence attorneys argued unsuccessfully that overzealous law enforcement officers posing as al-Qaeda militants invented a crime and entrapped their client.
Mohamud's mother, Mariam Barre, lashed out tearfully on the courthouse steps at sentencing, saying the government had “put ideas into his mind” while simultaneously telling him not to speak to his parents.
“I am so disappointed,” she said. “I came here to have the dream every American should have.”
In court papers filed before sentencing, prosecutors sought a 40-year sentence, arguing Mohamud had “believed he was going to maim and kill thousands of people by detonating a bomb”.
Defence attorneys, who asked for a 10-year term, told reporters they would appeal the decision and that Mohamud would get credit for nearly four years he has already been incarcerated. In a court filing, they argued he “continues to feel shame and abhorrence for this conduct”.
Mohamud's lawyers said his constitutional rights had been violated because investigators obtained evidence through warrantless interceptions of electronic communications between their client and foreigners who were under surveillance.
Those arguments come at a time of increased debate about government monitoring of electronic communications of Americans, after disclosures of US surveillance activities by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. - Reuters