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First of Lackawanna Six Sentenced
Aired December 03, 2003 - 15:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Ten years for the first of the "Lackawanna Six." The half-dozen Yemeni Americans who trekked from Upstate New York to an al Qaeda terror camp in 2001 are being sentenced this week and next.
CNN's Maria Hinojosa is in Buffalo now with one of those cases closed, five more to go.
Maria, hello to you.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Heidi.
Yes, Mukhtar al-Bakri has just been sentenced to 10 years in prison, with a $2,000 fine. Now, that was the maximum sentence that he could have received under a plea agreement between the government and his defense attorneys. The maximum that he could have received, if it had gone to trial, could have been anywhere from 25 to 40 years. And the maximum that he could have received if there was a different kind of plea agreement might have been up to 18 years.
Now, interestingly, Heidi, in the courtroom, when the 23-year-old al-Bakri walked in, one of the first things that you noticed was that he was smiling. He was led in in handcuffs. He was wearing a plaid shirt and khaki, no suit and tie, with a shaggy haircut that appears to be kind of popular with young Yemeni men. He came in and he was smiling to his family members. It appeared to me that this is not necessarily a situation you might want to find yourself smiling in. But he was.
It began in a very slow process, the judge going over all of the details of this case. And, at one point, when the judge then said, Mr. al-Bakri, I am now going to in fact sentence you to the maximum under this plea agreement of 10 years, it appeared that Mr. al-Bakri at that point looked at the judge and again smiled. And, at that point, the judge said to him, I'm not sure why you're smiling about this. This isn't anything to be smiling about.
And then his lawyer, al-Bakri's lawyer said, judge, he means no disrespect. It's just part of his personality. The judge went on to just say, I hope you understand the severity of what's happening here, why we're sentencing you to this amount of time. Hopefully, you will take this time, the judge said, to atone for the crimes that you did knowingly.
But it was definitely a very interesting situation, with this young man being sentenced in this case of Lackawanna Six to the maximum of 10 years, and this confrontation, minor confrontation, between him and the judge -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Maria Hinojosa, thanks so much, the very latest from Buffalo, New York.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired December 3, 2003 - 15:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Ten years for the first of the "Lackawanna Six." The half-dozen Yemeni Americans who trekked from Upstate New York to an al Qaeda terror camp in 2001 are being sentenced this week and next.
CNN's Maria Hinojosa is in Buffalo now with one of those cases closed, five more to go.
Maria, hello to you.
MARIA HINOJOSA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Heidi.
Yes, Mukhtar al-Bakri has just been sentenced to 10 years in prison, with a $2,000 fine. Now, that was the maximum sentence that he could have received under a plea agreement between the government and his defense attorneys. The maximum that he could have received, if it had gone to trial, could have been anywhere from 25 to 40 years. And the maximum that he could have received if there was a different kind of plea agreement might have been up to 18 years.
Now, interestingly, Heidi, in the courtroom, when the 23-year-old al-Bakri walked in, one of the first things that you noticed was that he was smiling. He was led in in handcuffs. He was wearing a plaid shirt and khaki, no suit and tie, with a shaggy haircut that appears to be kind of popular with young Yemeni men. He came in and he was smiling to his family members. It appeared to me that this is not necessarily a situation you might want to find yourself smiling in. But he was.
It began in a very slow process, the judge going over all of the details of this case. And, at one point, when the judge then said, Mr. al-Bakri, I am now going to in fact sentence you to the maximum under this plea agreement of 10 years, it appeared that Mr. al-Bakri at that point looked at the judge and again smiled. And, at that point, the judge said to him, I'm not sure why you're smiling about this. This isn't anything to be smiling about.
And then his lawyer, al-Bakri's lawyer said, judge, he means no disrespect. It's just part of his personality. The judge went on to just say, I hope you understand the severity of what's happening here, why we're sentencing you to this amount of time. Hopefully, you will take this time, the judge said, to atone for the crimes that you did knowingly.
But it was definitely a very interesting situation, with this young man being sentenced in this case of Lackawanna Six to the maximum of 10 years, and this confrontation, minor confrontation, between him and the judge -- Heidi.
COLLINS: All right, Maria Hinojosa, thanks so much, the very latest from Buffalo, New York.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
