Don’t sentence me to life, Abdulmutallab pleads

Posted by admin Headlines Tuesday, February 14th, 2012

February 14, 2012 by Agency Reporter

A lawyer for the Nigerian man who pleaded guilty to trying to blow up a United States jumbo passenger jet on Christmas Day in 2009 urged a federal judge on Monday not to sentence to Farouk Abdulmutallab spend the rest of his life in prison because it was cruel and unusual punishment.

Abdulmutallab, 25, pleaded guilty in a federal court in October 2011 of trying to detonate a bomb hidden in his underwear as part of a plot orchestrated by al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

He is due to be sentenced on Thursday in Detroit and faces up to life in prison for the bombing attempt aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit that had 289 people on board.

His lawyer Anthony Chambers argued that the mandatory life sentence required under US law for some of the crimes he admitted to committing was unconstitutional, particularly because no one was seriously hurt during the bombing attempt.

“Given the circumstances and what did NOT occur in the instant matter it is fair to say that the mandatory minimum sentence of life imprisonment is excessive and grossly disproportionate to the conduct,” Chambers said in a court filing, emphasising the word “not.”

While not making a specific request, he requested on Abdulmutallab’s behalf that the judge impose a sentence below the advisory guideline range because a life sentence would be a “misinterpretation of justice.”

-Punchwp_posts