U.S. citizen sentenced to 45 years in prison for role in Afghanistan terror attack

A U.S. citizen has been sentenced to 45 years in prison Tuesday for supporting Al Qaeda and taking part in a 2009 car bomb attack on a military base in Afghanistan, the Department of Justice said.

Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh, 32 of Houston, was sentenced Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn. He was found guilty in a September jury trial on charges of charges of conspiring to murder Americans, using a weapon of mass destruction and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.

“With the sentence handed down today, al Qaeda terrorist Muhanad Mahmoud Al Farekh is being held accountable for his crimes. Farekh – an American citizen – traveled overseas, joined al Qaeda, and conspired to kill Americans, including through an attack using explosive devices on a U.S. military installation in Afghanistan in 2009,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Demers.

Farekh and two-conspirators, who were all students at the University of Manitoba in Canada, traveled to Paksitan in 2007 where they joined Al Qaeda, according to the Justice Department. In 2009, Farekh helped build a car bomb that was used in an attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman, which served as the base for the U.S. reconstruction team in Afghanistan. Prosecutors said Farekh’s fingerprints were found on adhesive tape use to bind together the explosive materials used in the attack.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard M. Tucker, Douglas M. Pravda and Saritha Komatireddy of the Eastern District of New York, along with Trial Attorney Alicia Cook of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section, are in charge of the prosecution.