Bin Laden secretary gets life in prison
A man who once served as Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary has been resentenced to life in prison after he told a US judge that the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Sandy were God’s punishment for his unjust conviction.
Wadih El-Hage, a 52-year-old Lebanese-born naturalized US
citizen, was one of four men convicted in a Manhattan court for
conspiring with al-Qaeda to kill Americans. He was convicted in May
2001 for his role in the August 1998 bombings of two US embassies
in Africa, which killed 224 people. He also performed
administrative tasks for al-Qaeda, including the disbursing of
payroll and the management of businesses that funded the group’s
operations.
El-Hage had served as bin Laden’s personal secretary nearly 20
years ago, and was arrested in 1998 for his involvement in the
embassy bombings. In 2001, he was sentenced to life without
parole.
The Federal District Court in Manhattan resentenced El-Hage on
Tuesday, while allowing the man to speak about his case. An appeals
court in 2008 upheld the conviction, but ordered a reconsideration
of the life without parole sentence. In the speech he gave before
the court, El-Hage condemned the US government for falsely
sentencing him and referred to 9/11 and Hurricane Sandy as
punishment for his conviction.
The bearded man claims he had “nothing to do with any of those
conspiracies”, referencing the al-Qaeda plots to kill
Americans.
"I was unfairly and unjustly convicted and God most exalted,
punishes swiftly and severely for injustices," El-Hage told
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. "Then came down God's swift
and severe punishment on this district, on this town and the whole
city came down on its knees and the whole nation followed."
The speech is a stark contrast to what El-Hage said during his
first sentencing, when he condemned the 9/11 attacks and called
them “radical” and “extreme” plots to kill innocent
people.
Tuesday’s 30-minute speech prompted Kaplan to resentence El-Hage
without hesitation, while also arguing that the man would most
likely conduct more acts of terror “to the best of [his]
abilities, until [his] last breath.”
"You, sir, in my judgment, are a committed terrorist who has
betrayed his country," U.S. District Kaplan told El-Hage. The
judge then proceeded to re-impose a $33.8 million restitution
order, most of which would go to the US government and $7 million
of which would be given to the families of victims of the embassy
bombings.
El-Hage told the court that he has spent his time in prison reading
legal books and that he plans to be back to appeal his
case.