Nearly six years after the government accused three men of plotting terrorist bombings while sipping refreshments at a suburban Columbus coffee shop, a federal judge was expected to sentence the last of them to a 20-year prison term.
American-born Christopher Paul was to be sentenced Thursday by U.S. District Court Judge Gregory Frost after pleading guilty in June to one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction in terrorist attacks.
Paul, 44, was accused of joining al-Qaida in the early 1990s and helping teach fellow Muslim extremists how to bomb U.S. and European targets. Prosecutors agreed to drop charges of providing material support to terrorists and conspiracy to provide support to terrorists. The Justice Department accused Paul and two other men of discussing terrorist attacks during an August 2002 meeting at the Caribou Cafe coffee shop in Upper Arlington. The other two also pleaded guilty: Nuradin Abdi in 2007 in connection with an alleged plot to blow up an Ohio shopping mall, and Iyman Faris in 2003 in connection with an alleged plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. |
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