Another update on this story. “Sears Tower bomb plot leader Narseal Batiste jailed,” from BBC News, November 20:
The leader of a group which plotted to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago has been sentenced to 13-and-a-half years in prison.
Narseal Batiste, 35, also planned to bomb FBI offices, along with four other men who have already been jailed.
Prosecutors said the men conspired to provide material support to al-Qaeda but defence lawyers said the plot was never serious.
Prosecutors in Miami had sought the maximum 70-year sentence for Batiste.
But he maintained he only went along with the plot to seize the $50,000 (£30,000) offered by an undercover FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda operative.
The men, most of whom have Haitian backgrounds, were arrested in Miami in 2006.
They had been caught on tape by the FBI informant discussing plans to cause an anti-government insurrection.
Batiste was heard on audio and video tape saying they should start a “full ground war” that would “kill all the devils”.
‘No threat’
Sentencing Batiste, US District Judge Joan Lenard said: “You’ve done great harm to yourself, your family, the young men who were your followers, and you’ve violated the trust of your country.”
Batiste apologised for the plot in court, saying he had “wanted respect”….