Life Sentence For Man Convicted In JFK Airport Terror Plot
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- One of the men behind a plot to firebomb Kennedy Airport has been sentenced to life in prison.
Kareem Ibrahim was sentenced Friday in Brooklyn federal court eight months after being convicted of conspiracy.
Ibrahim was one of four men charged in the 2007 plot to blow up JFK's jet fuel supply.
Ibrahim's attorneys had argued in court papers that he only deserved 13 years.
They claimed prosecutors had exaggerated his role in a scheme that had been infiltrated by a FBI informant and had no chance of succeeding.
But prosecutors argued the men wanted to kill thousands of people and cripple the American economy by using explosives to blow up the fuel tanks and the underground pipelines that run through an adjacent Queens neighborhood.
U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a statement that the 66-year-old Shiite imam from Trinidad "abandoned the true tenants of his religion'' by participating in the plot.
Two of his accomplices are serving life sentences. The other is serving 15 years.
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