Sentencing Day For Albany Terror Convicts

Yassin Aref and Mohammed Hossain will walk into U.S. District Court this morning knowing that hundreds of people, some of them strangers, have asked a federal judge to show them mercy.

The Muslim men, an imam and a pizzeria owner, were convicted in October of money laundering and conspiring to aid terrorism after being snared in an FBI sting that startled the region, playing on post-9/11 fears of terrorist plots.


Prosecutors have asked the judge to follow stiff federal sentencing guidelines that call for decades in prison for their roles in the fictitious plot to sell a shoulder-fired missile to terrorists targeting a Pakistani diplomat. Both face a recommended sentence between 30 years and life.

It's a curious thing that the reporter would latch onto the fact that these two convicted felons have supporters who are hoping for mercy as the lede and not the fact that these two were convicted of money laundering and conspiring to aid terrorism. Their entrapment defense didn't work, nor did claims that the evidence against them was unlawfully obtained.

UPDATE:
15 years for Aref.

UPDATE:
Hossein got the same sentence. 15 years.