Prosecutors say Aswat, a British citizen of Indian descent, and another man, Oussama Kassir, went to Oregon 16 years ago at the request of radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to set up the camp in a town called Bly. In a brief statement, Aswat apologised for breaking United States of America law and causing “distress” to friends and family, and said he looked forward to finding a wife and settling down.
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He has already spent 11 years in custody since his arrest – meaning, due to time served and good behavior, he could qualify for early release in six years and can apply to serve the remainder of his sentence in Britain.
Aswat was supposed to provide religious training at the camp, which prosecutors said was set up to support al Qaeda.
Following his return to London, he traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan in mid-2001 in order to attend a training camp. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Shane Stansbury said “to paint this man as a pacifist is a complete distortion of the truth”. A ledger naming Aswat as an al-Qaida associate was said to have been found in 2002 in a Pakistan safehouse that prosecutors say was used by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the 11 September terrorist attacks.
After the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the United States invasion of Afghanistan, Aswat fled to South Africa, and was arrested in Zambia in 2005.
ASWAT, 41, was convicted of one count of conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda, and one count of providing material support to al Qaeda.
Sentencing Judge Katherine Forrest said he would be returned to the United Kingdom on completion of his sentence.
In January, judge Forrest sentenced the extremist cleric Abu Hamza to life in prison on charges of kidnapping and terrorism, calling him “evil” and his crimes “barbaric”.
On May 19, 2014, after a four-week jury trial in the Southern District of New York, Abu Hamza was found guilty of charges relating to his role in the conspiracy to establish the terrorist training camp in Bly, as well as his role in a hostage-taking in Yemen in 1998 that resulted in four deaths, and his support of violent jihad in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001.
The court heard that in the 1990s he was close to Hamza for three years and did his shopping and drove him around at the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London.
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Kassir was convicted in New York in 2009 and also sentenced to life in prison. Mr. Bharara also thanked the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Security Division and Office of global Affairs for their ongoing assistance.
