An Iraqi man who pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in Kentucky was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without parole and a co-defendant received a 40-year sentence for his role in a plot to ship weapons and cash to insurgents in Iraq.Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, 25, protested U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell's decision to send him away for life while granting 30-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan less time in prison.
| Alwan must have 'cooperated'... |
Hammadi's attorney, James Earhart of Louisville, had sought 25 years in prison for his client and said he would appeal the life sentence.
"A 25-year-old getting a life sentence is a tragedy," Earhart said. "The life that he lived is a tragedy."
Hammadi and Alwan pleaded guilty in 2011 and 2012 to working with a man they thought was an insurgent in the United States to ship thousands in cash, machine guns, rifles, grenades and shoulder-fired missiles to al-Qaida in Iraq from 2010 through 2011. Prosecutors said the two were actually working with a confidential informant who recorded the pair's activities and no money or weapons ever left the United States.
The two were arrested in May 2011 in Bowling Green, Ky., after a federal sting operation.
Former Pennsylvania National Guard Sgt. Brandon Miller of Chadds Ford, Pa., described the sentences as "outstanding."
Ford received a Purple Heart for burn injuries sustained when his Humvee blew up after hitting a roadside bomb near Bayji, where Alwan and Hammadi admitted to planning explosives.