A judge said Monday she’s inclined to believe
the US government when it says a Vietnamese man plotted to carry out a
suicide bombing of London’s Heathrow Airport.
The statement by US District Judge Alison Nathan
in Manhattan forced a postponement of the sentencing of Minh Quang Pham
as his defence attorney requested more time to decide how best to
change the judge’s mind.
Which way the judge leans could be pivotal in
determining whether Pham serves closer to the minimum 30 years in prison
he faces or the 50 years in prison requested by prosecutors.
Pham, 33, pleaded guilty in January to terrorism
charges, admitting he provided material support in 2011 to al-Qaeda in
the Arabian Peninsula. The group has called on followers to attack
civilians and has taken credit for coordinating attacks overseas,
including the January 2015 Paris attack on the French publication Charlie Hebdo, which killed a dozen people.
Pham did not agree during his plea to government
claims he plotted in 2011 to carry out a Heathrow attack, and no attack
occurred.
But as Pham’s sentencing hearing began, the
judge told lawyers: “My inclination is to accept the government’s
version of the facts.”
Pham’s attorney, Bobbi Sternheim, said Pham had
“been firm since the day I met him” that it was never his intention to
commit violence. She has represented him since he was extradited to the
United States from London in March 2015.
She said if he had planned to carry out the
attack, he would have taken steps to do so in the nearly half-year from
July 2011, when he returned to London from Yemen, to December 2011, when
he was arrested. Sternheim said if he intended to bomb the airport his
motivation would have been high after a US-born al-Qaeda leader, Anwar
Al-Awlaki, was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.
“It didn’t happen,” she said.
Prosecutors say Pham was directed by Al-Awlaki
to detonate explosives made with household chemicals in the arrivals
area at Heathrow. He was detained and questioned by authorities when he
returned to England from Yemen, where he had received weapons training
and worked on an al-Qaeda publicity publication since arriving there
weeks after leaving his eight-months-pregnant wife behind in December
2010. The government has said he lied to his family about his travel
destination.
The judge said facts support the theory that
Pham was careful after his return to London because he believed he was
being watched by terrorism investigators.
Assistant US Attorney Anna Skotko cited evidence
to support the government’s claims, including statements he made to
others that he was on track with his mission and that he wanted to be a
martyr.
“Jihad was more important than family,” she said.
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