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Abdirahman Sheik Mohamud, 26, was sentenced to 22 years in prison by a federal judge on Jan. 22 after the Ohio man plead guilty for plotting Islamic terrorism on American soil following a trip to join the al-Nusrah Front, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.
The Associated Press reports that upon returning to the U.S., Mohamud planned to fly to Texas and attack the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth in order to free Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist convicted of shooting two U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.
Mohamud, who was born in Somalia and came to the U.S. as a 2-year-old, told Judge Michael Watson that he knew it was wrong but he fell into the trap of radicalization while abroad. He also apologized and told Watson that he wished he could take it back.
His attorney Sam Shamansky asked for lenience citing Mohamud’s lack of having a failure growing up, brainwashing “by professional head twisters” abroad and that the attack didn’t “actually” happen.
“This is a scared, confused, 23-year-old kid, an American kid, who gets his head twisted,” Shamansky said. He called Mohamud’s plan “nonsensical.”
Making the point that idea of 9/11 before 9/11 was also “nonsensical,” assistant U.S. attorney Doug Squires, rebutted that “Because of the FBI, this plot was taken down and we’re all safer for it.”
