WASHINGTON – Saudi-born al-Qaeda member, convicted last year of killing twoUS service members in Afghanistan, received a life sentence Friday in a NewYork courtroom.
But Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Harun, a self-described al-Qaeda “warrior,”refused to attend his sentencing, Fox News reported.
“I can’t think of a more serious crime,” US District Judge Brian M Cogansaid as he announced the sentence for Harun in a Brooklyn, N.Y., courtroomwhere a monitor showing the entrance to Harun’s cell rested near hislawyers. Harun also had refused to attend his trial last year.
Fox News reported the judge rejected Harun’s claim that he was more asoldier than a terrorist, saying Harun wanted to kill “dozens or maybehundreds of Americans” and those from other nationalities, as well.
“I’m confident the defendant doesn’t differentiate whether they arecivilians or soldiers,” Cogan said.
A jury last March convicted Harun after prosecutors said he confessed whilein Italian custody that he threw a grenade and shot at an American militaryunit in a 2003 ambush that killed Army Pvt. Jerod Dennis, of Antlers,Okla., and Air Force Airman Ray Losano, of Del Rio, Texas.
While on the run, Harun later masterminded a failed plot to bomb a USEmbassy in Nigeria, the government said. He was under the directsupervision of al-Qaeda higher-ups, including some still held at GuantanamoBay, it said.
Fox News stated, the Saudi-born defendant who claims Niger citizenship hadinsisted he was a “warrior” who should face a military tribunal rather thana civilian court prosecution.
Cogan said soldiers in wartime don’t target embassies.
Harun, 47, was extradited from Italy to the US in 2012.
The judge said Harun told prison officials Friday: “This is not my court.That is not my judge.”
Fox News reported that Cogan called Harun “self-absorbed,” noting that hewas willing to speak to the judge and his lawyers as long as he thought hewas going to get his way.
“If this man ever walks the streets again, the first thing he will do istry to kill Americans,” Cogan said. “He has one gear. That’s to killAmericans.”
“If this man ever walks the streets again, the first thing he will do istry to kill Americans.”