Just as expected, Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square bomber, who authorities say had links to al Qaeda in Pakistan, was given a life sentence Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum, during sentencing, told Shahzad, according to the New York Times: “You are a young man, and you will have a lot of time to reflect about what you have said today, and what you have done.”
Shahzad told the judge:
“We are only Muslims … but if you call us terrorists, we are proud terrorists and we will keep on terrorizing you,” he said, according to the Associated Press, adding at another point: “The defeat of the U.S. is imminent.”
“If I’m given 1,000 lives I will sacrifice them all for the life of Allah,” he also said. “How can I be judged by a court that does not understand the suffering of my people?”
Though Shahzad, 31, cooperated with authorities after his capture, he showed no remorse when entering a guilty plea, eliminating even the slightest of chances of getting any break on his sentence.
After sentencing Tuesday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara issued a statement:
“Faisal Shahzad is a remorseless terrorist who betrayed his adopted country and today was rightly sentenced to spend the rest of his life in federal prison.”
“The case of Faisal Shahzad demonstrates the global scope of the terrorist threat,” added Janice K. Fedarcyk, head of the New York FBI, in a statement. “Distinctions between home-grown and foreign terrorists are blurred when a U.S. citizen travels to Pakistan to learn bomb-making from a known terrorist organization, then returns to the U.S. and receives financial backing from the overseas organization.
” However you define him, there’s no question that Shahzad built a mobile weapon of mass destruction and hoped and intended that it would kill large numbers of innocent people – and planned to do it again two weeks later.”
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