A setback for Frosty the Suicide Bomber. “Canada hands Moroccan life sentence for promoting jihad,” from Agence France-Presse, February 18 (thanks to all who sent this in):
MONTREAL — A Moroccan man was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for plotting attacks in Germany and Austria and touting terrorism online from his basement apartment in a Quebec village, said media.
Said Namouh, 37, was convicted in October of four charges under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, including conspiring to detonate a bomb, facilitating terrorism, participating in a terrorist group and extorting a foreign government on its behalf.
His attorney Rene Duval told Canada’s public broadcaster the sentence, for what he argued at trial was nothing more than a case of freedom of expression, was “extremely harsh.”
An Austrian court in 2008 sentenced Namouh’s alleged co-conspirators, an Egyptian-born man and his wife, to four years and 22 months in prison, respectively.
Quebec court Judge Claude Leblond, however, said Namouh remained remorseless and dangerous.
Namouh was arrested in September 2007 for engaging in more than 1,000 online conversations and producing videos praising violent attacks on US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as helping distribute ransom demands for kidnappers of a British journalist in Gaza.
Prosecutors accused him of editing videos for the Global Islamic Media Front, said to be a propaganda and recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
In online postings, he also touted his explosives expertise and threatened future attacks in Germany and Austria unless their troops withdrew from Afghanistan.
Namouh, who moved to Canada in 2003, must serve at least 10 years behind bars before he will be eligible for parole.
Ottawa has said it would seek to deport him after his release from prison.