PHOENIX (AP) - An Iraqi man who helped anti-government forces try to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq and is charged in state court with bombing a Social Security building in Arizona was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison for felony weapons possession.
Abdullatif Ali Aldosary, 48, was convicted in September in federal court on three counts related to weapons possession.
Authorities said they found guns and hundreds of rounds of ammunition when they searched his home after the explosive was detonated.
Aldosary isn’t allowed to own firearms because of a previous felony conviction.
“The court believes the defendant presents an extreme danger to the community,” U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton said Monday in imposing the five-year sentence, plus a $7,500 fine.
Prosecutors had agreed to combine the three counts into one for sentencing, leading to less time in federal prison, given the more serious case pending against him in Pinal County. Aldosary has 14 days to appeal his sentence.
Defense attorneys and prosecutors declined comment after the hearing.
Aldosary, dressed in striped jail clothes and shackled at the wrists and ankles, did not speak on his behalf, offering only brief responses to the judge’s questions about whether he understood the sentence.
Separately, he faces multiple state counts, including 14 charges of attempted first-degree murder, arson and use of explosives. Authorities say he detonated a homemade explosive device Nov. 30 outside a Social Security Administration building in Casa Grande. No one was injured.
Prosecutors said the attempted murder charges stem from 14 employees who were inside the building at the time of the blast.
In yet another state case, Aldosary is charged with murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, and two firearms counts in the Nov. 27, 2012, killing of a man at the Arizona Grain processing facility in Maricopa, about 35 miles south of Phoenix.
Aldosary also was employed there for a time. Authorities have not released a motive in either the bombing or the killing and have declined to discuss whether they were related.
Aldosary has not yet entered a plea in either case. His arraignment on all state charges is set for March.
Aldosary came to the United States legally in 1997 from his home country of Iraq.
In 2008, he pleaded guilty to felony aggravated harassment charges. He was sentenced to two months in jail and three years of probation, but was later ordered to serve a year in prison.
Aldosary had sought help from U.S. Rep. Paul Gosar’s office in 2011 in obtaining permanent residency. Gosar has said he contacted Homeland Security, which responded in a letter that Aldosary’s case had been put on hold “pursuant to the terrorism-related grounds of inadmissibility” under a section of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Authorities say he was denied a green card because he fought with anti-government forces trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein in Basra, Iraq, in 1991.
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