Terror convict jailed for 40 years in US

  • 25/11/2015
(File)
(File)

A 29-year-old Pakistani former school cricket captain has been jailed for 40 years in the United States over an al-Qaeda plot to bomb a British shopping centre.

Abid Naseer was first arrested in 2009 in Britain with 11 other men suspected of preparing to attack a mall in Manchester, and was extradited to the US from Britain in 2013.

"You are not a typical criminal," Judge Raymond Dearie told Naseer in the US federal court in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

"You are a terrorist, the evidence establishes that."

Naseer was convicted earlier this year of helping al-Qaeda plan the attack on the Manchester shopping centre as part of coordinated attacks that also targeted the New York subway and a Danish newspaper.

He was tried in the US because of the alleged link to the subway and American prosecutors called it one of the most serious terror plots since the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

He was convicted of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organisation, conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaeda and with conspiring to use a destructive device.

Naseer, who comes from a wealthy family in Pakistan and who was in Britain as a student, told the court that he wanted to serve the remainder of his sentence in Britain.

In brief remarks to the court, he spoke of his love for English Premier League soccer and his favourite team, Manchester City.

AFP