“You’re going to hell,” said his victim, but it is likely that Salim believes Allah will reward him for his deed. “Ex-bin Laden aide gets life for NY prison stabbing,” by Larry Neumeister for Associated Press, August 31:
NEW YORK (AP) — A former Osama bin Laden aide who stabbed a federal prison guard in the eye was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison after telling the court he’s not a terrorist and hearing his victim tell him he will go to hell.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Batts said Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 52, deserved a life sentence for his “unusually cruel, brutal” attack in 2000 on guard Louis Pepe at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. She ordered Salim to pay $4.72 million in restitution to cover the medical expenses for Pepe’s continuing rehabilitation.
The stabbing left Pepe brain-damaged and blind in one eye. The sentence caused Pepe’s sister, Eileen Trotta, to thrust her fists in the air enthusiastically and to pat Pepe on the back. More than a half-dozen guards who watched the proceeding congratulated a smiling Pepe afterward as he rolled his wheelchair out of court. […]
Pepe told Salim that he can’t walk anymore and it’s difficult to talk. He also told Salim that Salim’s not going to be a martyr.
“You’re going to hell,” he said. […]
Salim spoke in English, saying: “I’m not a criminal. I’m not a terrorist.” He said the stabbing occurred on Nov. 1, 2000, as he was trying to get to his defense lawyers to force them out of the case because he believed they were federal agents. He sought a set of keys from Pepe to enter a room where the lawyers were waiting for him.
He sprayed Pepe with hot sauce to blind him before stabbing him in the eye with a sharpened comb he had hidden in his cell in a high-security wing of the federal lockup next to federal court. He has said he intended to stab the lawyers so they could no longer represent him.
At the time, Salim was awaiting trial on a conspiracy charge after his arrest in the August 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The attacks killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans.
Salim said he requested not to be taken to court Tuesday because he gets beaten by guards whenever he is moved from one prison to another.
Of Pepe, Salim said: “If the victim here wants to take my eye, let him take my eye. If he wants to take my hand, let him take my hand.”…
This is in accord with the Qur’anic dictum: “We ordained therein for them: ‘Life for life, eye for eye, nose or nose, ear for ear, tooth for tooth, and wounds equal for equal.’ But if any one remits the retaliation by way of charity, it is an act of atonement for himself. And if any fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (No better than) wrong-doers.” (5:45)