• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

California: Muslim who wanted to join Taliban gets 15 years prison dawah for trying to blow up bank

Mar 1, 2014 9:51 am By Robert Spencer

LlanezaHe wanted to commit mass murder in the cause of jihad, but he only got fifteen years because, you see, it was all really about his “desire for human connection” rather than “hatred for his country,” according to Judge Virginia Gonzalez Rogers, who is apparently a psychologist as well as a district court judge. It was all about how he was rejected time and time again, and wanted to be accepted — by bloodthirsty jihad murderers, you know. And even though he pleaded guilty, well, you see, he is mentally unstable, and really wouldn’t harm a fly — except with high explosives, anyway. Also, once again we see the now-standard journalistic practice of not revealing the Muslim name of a convert to Islam unless he does something good. Those converts to Islam who do evil in its cause, or attempt to do so, are forever punished by being known in the mainstream media only by their rejected Infidel names.

“California man who claimed Taliban sympathies, wanted to blow up bank gets 15 years prison,” by Lisa Leff for The Associated Press, February 28 (thanks to Kenneth):

OAKLAND, Calif. – A California man with delusions of joining the Taliban was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for trying to blow up a bank with a car bomb he thought would go off but was actually made up of inert materials supplied by the FBI.

U.S. District Judge Virginia Gonzalez Rogers said Thursday she was satisfied that the sentence — spelled out in a plea deal between Matthew Aaron Llaneza and federal prosecutors — struck a balance between acknowledging the 29-year-old San Jose resident’s mental condition and punishing him for actions that “by their nature are terrorist.”

Llaneza was arrested last February near a Bank of America building in Oakland after he tried to detonate an SUV loaded with chemicals he secured with the help of an FBI agent posing as a Taliban go-between.

Both the vehicle and the inert chemicals loaded inside were supplied by FBI agents after Llaneza allegedly made contact with an undercover agent who pretended to have connections with the Taliban and helped him build a phoney car bomb. He was arrested near the four-story bank building in Oakland after he pressed a cellphone trigger to try to detonate the explosives, which he believed were real.

The FBI alleges Llaneza hoped the explosion would be blamed on anti-government militias and prompt a government crackdown that would touch off civil unrest in the United States. He also allegedly bragged that he had experience in guerrilla warfare and expressed a desire to join the Taliban in Afghanistan after carrying out the terrorist plot.

The judge acknowledged that Llaneza sought to minimize deaths and injuries from his failed plot by carrying it out in the middle of the night and may have been motivated as much by a desire for human connection than hated for his country. Within that context, “Fifteen years is sufficient, but not more than necessary,” Rogers said.

“This case, like many others we all read about, seems to indicate there are individuals who have been rejected time and time again who are looking to belong and to be accepted,” Rogers said. “This was a most unfortunate way of doing about it.”

Along with the prison term, Rogers sentenced Llaneza to spend the rest of his life on probation, meaning law enforcement officers will be free to search him at any time.

Llaneza pleaded guilty in October to one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, a conviction that would ordinarily carry a sentence of 30 years to life. Looking slight, pale and wide-eyed during his court appearance Thursday, Llaneza apologized to the judge, said he was taking psychiatric medication and would “seek rehabilitation while incarcerated.”

Llaneza’s parents, Steven Llaneza and Dora Tune, had submitted a letter to the judge attesting to his “his genuinely good core character” and lifetime of struggles.

“The conduct he pleaded guilty to is very out of character for him, and we never ever would have thought he would come up with an idea like he has been accused of,” they said.

Steven Llaneza attended Thursday’s hearing but did not address the court. He declined to speak with reporters afterward.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a pre-sentencing memo that it took into account Llaneza’s history of mental illness — he has been diagnosed at various times as suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder — and the fact that he tried to minimize casualties by trying to blow up the building in the early morning when it would be mostly unoccupied.

“Defendants’ conduct here was very serious. He knowingly and wilfully participated in a plan to blow up a bank building. He created the plan and selected the target. He helped build what he believed to be a large bomb to accomplish the plan. He drove the bomb to the bank building, placed it in a location designed to maximize its destructive force, then attempted to detonate it twice,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Caputo wrote in the memo.

“Had the bomb been real, it would have destroyed at least a portion of the building and easily could have killed or seriously injured innocent bystanders.”

Llaneza’s defence lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender Jerome Matthews, said in a memo of his own that he would not argue with a 15-year sentence during Thursday’s hearing even though “it is an open question whether Matthew Llaneza would have participated in a plot to detonate a car bomb had he not been introduced to and guided by an undercover FBI agent.”

“Matthew was not a radicalized jihadist but rather a delusional, severely mentally disturbed young man; he had no technical skills to speak of,” Matthews wrote. “He had no training or background that would have helped him to accomplish an actual bombing; he was preternaturally suggestible and desirous of being accepted; and, not least, he had no desire to inflict mass casualties.”

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: converts to Islam, Jihad in the U.S. Tagged With: featured


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Comments

  1. eib says

    Mar 1, 2014 at 10:06 am

    Nihilists don’t desire human connection, madam.
    How you ever earned your robes is beyond me.

  2. eib says

    Mar 1, 2014 at 10:15 am

    With the right ears, he’d be the perfect goat.
    Or jackass.

  3. Jay Boo says

    Mar 1, 2014 at 10:17 am

    Had he succeeded he might have been the next cover page on Rolling Stone Magazine, assuming of course that non-Muslims were killed and maimed in the process. After all, Rolling Stone is not able to honor just any jihad terrorist on its cover page. They have their standards.

  4. John Spielman says

    Mar 1, 2014 at 10:49 am

    If he wanted “human connection” he certainly wiil get it in prison with his cell mate who hasn’t been with a woman for twenty years.

  5. Bezelel says

    Mar 2, 2014 at 12:34 am

    Maybe the the judge will adopt him.

  6. Jacksonl03 says

    Mar 2, 2014 at 12:24 pm

    “Matthew was not a radicalized jihadist but rather a delusional, severely mentally disturbed young man; he had no technical skills to speak of,” Matthews wrote. “He had no training or background that would have helped him to accomplish an actual bombing; he was preternaturally suggestible and desirous of being accepted; and, not least, he had no desire to inflict mass casualties.”

    Matthews looks deranged and delusional, but then that thought comes to me looking at just about any picture of a bearded Muslim.

    More to the point I wonder often just what procedures the FBI follows in these instances. How do they come across these bozos and then get involved to the point of supplying inert bomb materials? I get an uneasy (perhaps unwarranted) feeling sometimes that the word “recruit” might be applicable. If in fact: “He (Matthew) had . . . no background that would have helped him to accomplish an actual bombing.”

    Where then did his skill set in this instance come from?

  7. dumbledoresarmy says

    Apr 5, 2014 at 5:05 pm

    From the article – “The U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a pre-sentencing memo that it took into account Llaneza’s history of mental illness — he has been diagnosed at various times as suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.”

    Sans Islam, he would likely still be dangerous, but not *systemically* dangerous so to speak.

    The Ummah, the Allah Gang attracts – and, I suspect, the dawah artists make active efforts to suck in – the psychically marginal, those who are mentally and/ or morally weak/ damaged. And then it makes them much, much worse than they already are.

    Had this man fallen in with the Salvation Army, or an “Assembly of God” storefront street mission, he is highly unlikely to have gotten involved in a plot to blow up a bank. Instead, his psychiatric disturbances would – in any church used to dealing with marginal and damaged people – been recognised, and he would have been encouraged to seek medical help and persevere with his medication. He would have become no worse than he already was; he may even have become a little healthier, with a good strong “spiritual splint” applied to his shattered mind.

    Instead, he either sought out or was sought by the Mohammedan Mob, and recruited; and then became far, far worse than he already was.

    I’d like to know exactly where and when he became a Muslim, and who it was who witnessed his Shahada.

  8. IRFAN MUZAFFAR says

    May 7, 2014 at 11:54 pm

    meri jaan taliban

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • gravenimage on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • Shaman on Iranian Kurdistan: Muslim brothers behead their sister in honor killing over her romantic relationship
  • gravenimage on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • gravenimage on Chief Rabbi of UK Says It’s ‘Alarming’ That 44% of Muslims Are Anti-Semitic
  • Boycott Turkey on Iranian Kurdistan: Muslim brothers behead their sister in honor killing over her romantic relationship

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.