Ferdaus, Rezwan - Terrorist gets 17 years for f...
Rezwan Ferdaus - Gets 17 Years in Terrorist Plot Using Model Planes with Explosives
By JESS BIDGOOD - Published: November 2, 2012
BOSTON — A Massachusetts man who admitted to planning to blow up the Pentagon and the United States Capitol using remote-controlled planes laden with explosives was sentenced on Thursday to 17 years in prison.
The man, Rezwan Ferdaus, pleaded guilty in July to one charge of attempting to damage and destroy a federal building with explosives, and another of attempting to provide material support to terrorists.
Government prosecutors said Mr. Ferdaus had worked with undercover agents to obtain materials to equip F-86 drone aircraft with C-4 explosives and conducted surveillance in Washington, developing plans to detonate them there.
He also devised and built detonation mechanisms for improvised explosive devices that would allow cellphones to trigger an explosion, they said. Mr. Ferdaus gave 12 of the devices to F.B.I. agents who he believed were members ofAl Qaeda, prosecutors said.
Mr. Ferdaus, 27, studied physics at Northeastern University in Boston. His family lives in Ashland, Mass., an upscale suburb west of Boston.
His face lit up when he entered the courtroom in Federal District Court here on Thursday morning, as his family, who were packed into the part of the court’s gallery designated for them, leapt to their feet and greeted him. “Keep your head up,” said his mother, Anamaria Ferdaus.
In an address to the court, Mr. Ferdaus did not speak directly of his actions, but offered some reflections from his time in prison.
“I the other, the uniquely dressed, the lone man in these shoes, I speak of humanity,” Mr. Ferdaus said. “No dehumanization can serve as justification for inhumanity in other places,” he added, without saying what exactly he was referring to.
Mr. Ferdaus said he was reconciled to his fate, but optimistic about his future. “I hope for better and, God willing, I will aspire for more,” he said.
Judge Richard G. Stearns said, “Your statement convicted me that you have the character and capacity to search your own soul.” He imposed the sentence of 17 years’ imprisonment followed by 10 years of supervised release set forth in Mr. Ferdaus’s plea agreement.
After the hearing, Mrs. Ferdaus slumped inside an elevator, crying, as her family prepared to hand out fliers for a Web site, Standing Up for Rezwan, which argues that Mr. Ferdaus was mentally ill and that he was entrapped by government agents. “My son is innocent,” Mrs. Ferdaus said outside the courthouse.
Though Mr. Ferdaus’s lawyer, Miriam Conrad, never used an entrapment defense in court or asked for a mental evaluation of her client, she questioned the circumstances of his arrest as she spoke to reporters outside the court after the hearing, saying he had been encouraged to act by the agents investigating him.
“We continue to question whether the government’s efforts in this and other cases to encourage and prosecute targets who were unable or unlikely to ever act on their own is an appropriate use of government resources, or an effective tool to fight terrorism,” Ms. Conrad said.
Prosecutors said Mr. Ferdaus was given dozens of opportunities to back out of the plot, took his own initiative to develop the cellphone detonators and had looked into illegally obtaining weapons before he was ever contacted by the agents.
“He’s a person who decided that he wanted to become a terrorist,” Jack Pirozzolo, first assistant United States attorney, said after the hearing.
“He wanted to decapitate the military center of the United States, terrorize the United States, and kill as many people as possible,” said B. Stephanie Siegmann, an assistant United States attorney who prosecuted Mr. Ferdaus.