A Mauritanian court has upheld a death sentence handed to an Al-Qaeda assassin found guilty of gunning down an American in 2009.Mohamed Abdallahi Ould Hmednah, sentenced to death in March 2011 for killing Christopher Legget in Nouakchott, had appealed the sentence.
"The court upheld the verdict as well as the death sentence against main accused Mohamed Abdellahi Ould Hmednah and prison sentences for his two accomplices," said the judicial source on condition of anonymity.
Two men charged alongside Hmednah received 12 and three year prison terms respectively.
On June 23, 2011, Legget was shot three times in the head in central Nouakchott by gunnies as he got out of his car in front of his office.
Witnesses said the attackers tried to kidnap him, but he strongly resisted and they killed him.
AQIM, the regional branch of the late the late Osama bin Laden
... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest...
's terrorist network, grabbed credit for the killing.