Monday, April 15, 2013
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Sentencing is scheduled to get underway Monday for two New Jersey men who admitted plotting to join an armed Islamic group in Somalia in order to wage holy war against non-Muslims.
Mohamed Alessa of North Bergen and Carlos Almonte of Elmwood Park could face decades in prison.
The two pleaded guilty in March 2011 to conspiring within the United States to murder individuals outside the country by trying to join a group with ties to al-Qaida. They were arrested in June 2010 at New York's Kennedy Airport as they prepared to board separate planes to Egypt.
Attorneys for the two men have sought to portray them more as troubled youths than would-be terrorists.
U.S. District Judge Dickinson Debevoise, overseeing the case in Newark, says the sentencing could take several days.
Source: AP