“Raees Alam Qazi, 22, who went to Manhattan and bicycled around scoping out potential bomb targets that would result in mass casualties, is facing 32 years in federal prison. His brother, Sheheryar Alam Qazi, 32, who provided support, anticipates he will serve a 17-year prison term.” That’s a lot of years to devote to prison dawah.
“Broward brothers face prison for terrorist bomb plot in NYC,” by Paula McMahon, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 10, 2015:
When two Broward County brothers are sentenced Thursday for plotting a terrorist attack on New York City landmarks, the younger man expects to serve nearly twice as much time in prison as his sibling.
Raees Alam Qazi, 22, who went to Manhattan and bicycled around scoping out potential bomb targets that would result in mass casualties, is facing 32 years in federal prison. His brother, Sheheryar Alam Qazi, 32, who provided support, anticipates he will serve a 17-year prison term.
The Oakland Park men pleaded guilty earlier this year to conspiring to provide support to terrorists and conspiring to assault two deputy U.S. marshals. The younger brother pleaded guilty to an additional charge of attempting to provide material support to the terrorist group al-Qaida.
Under the terms of their plea agreements, federal prosecutors and the defense promised to jointly recommend those punishments at their sentencings in federal court in Miami.
Though most judges comply with such agreements, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom is not legally bound to follow the recommendations and could still impose the maximum penalties of 35 years for the younger man and 20 years for the older brother.
The younger brother deserves a tougher sentence because he posed a “serious threat” when he traveled to New York, planning to build and set off a bomb there, federal prosecutors wrote in court documents.
Though the plot never progressed past the planning and scouting stages, prosecutors revealed that Raees Qazi “not only engaged in his own plot to launch a terrorist attack, he also attempted to provide other like-minded individuals with encouragement and assistance in their own plots.
“Qazi recommended an Al Qa’ida-sponsored course on the manufacturing of explosives to an individual and … Qazi suggested to an informant that if the informant was serious about jihad, the informant could consider staying in Florida because the [person] knew that area well, including the ‘famous places,'” prosecutors wrote.
The two men have been locked up since Nov. 29, 2012, when Raees Qazi returned home from New York City to Broward County on a Greyhound bus.
In an interview with the FBI, he admitted he had spent a few days cycling around Manhattan, doing research to pull off a terrorist explosion. He said that he returned home because he ran out of cash and equipment but was planning to train more and experiment with bomb-making so he could return and carry out an attack in New York….
The brothers’ sentencing Thursday is also intended to punish them for an unusual assault on two deputy U.S. marshals who were moving them around the federal courthouse and detention center complex in downtown Miami in April 2014.
The brothers distracted their guards by simultaneously looking up, then punched and fought with the marshals while calling out “God is Great” in Arabic.…