Americans Get 10 Years in Pakistan in Terror Case

[Valin]

WSJ:

ZAHID HUSSAIN and TOM WRIGHT in Islamabad and KEITH JOHNSON in Washington DC
6/24/10

A Pakistan court sentenced five young Americans from the Washington, D.C., area to 10 years in jail for plotting terrorist acts in the country after they connected with an al Qaeda-linked jihadi via the Internet.
The judge in Sargodha, a town in Pakistan's Punjab province where the five men were arrested in December at the house of a relative, found the men guilty on charges of criminal conspiracy to commit terrorist acts.
The ruling also found the men, all in their teens and twenties, guilty of funding a banned terrorism organization. The court will issue a more detailed judgment at a later date.

Family members of the five men had expected that they would be freed.
"They are shocked, saddened and devastated," said Nihad Awad, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, which has acted as a liaison between the families and the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. government since the men were arrested in early December.

Pakistani prosecutors claimed that a computer and maps recovered from the men after their arrest showed they had contacted an al Qaeda-linked militant via email, had sought to get training, and were involved in a plot to blow up a dam on the Indus River.

(Snip)


The judge threw out other charges against the men, including one of directing others to commit terrorism, which carries a higher sentence of life imprisonment as a deterrent to stop jihadists from recruiting suicide bombers.
Both the prosecution and lawyers for the defense said they would appeal the verdict.
A lawyer for the men, Hassan Dastagir Kachela, said they were only planning to go "to Afghanistan to provide humanitarian help to the war-ravaged people."

Nina Ginsberg, a lawyer for the families of the five men, said, "I suspect they have more confidence in the court in Lahore," where the case will be appealed.
She added that she was "very disturbed by the lack of involvement by the U.S. government to protect the rights" of the men while in Pakistani custody.
A State Department spokesman said embassy representatives have followed the case closely and ensured the defendants' rights were protected.

(Snip)


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Life is about to get very interesting fir these young men.....and not in a good way. They are about to learn what hard time is all about.