“At the same moment you were shackling my hands and intending to bury me alive, you are at the same time unleashing the hands of hundreds of Muslim youths,” he said. “They will join the ranks of the free men soon and very soon the world will see the end of these theater plays.”
Defiant to the end, Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison for acting as Al Qaeda’s spokesman after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
Sulaiman Abu Ghaith was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who said he saw “no remorse whatsoever” from the 48-year-old imam.
“You continue to threaten,” the judge said. “You sir, in my assessment, still want to do everything you can to carry out Al Qaeda’s agenda of killing Americans.”
Abu Ghaith was the highest-ranking Al Qaeda figure to face trial on U.S. soil since the attacks. The Kuwaiti cleric became the voice of Al Qaeda recruitment videotapes after the 2001 attacks. He testified at trial that his role was strictly religious.
Just before he was sentenced, Abu Ghaith said through an interpreter that he “would not come here today and seek mercy from anyone but God.”
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