US
Man In Chicago Bomb Plot Sentenced To 16 Years Behind Bars, Prosecutors Wanted Longer Prison Time
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An Illinois judge sentenced a man to 16 years in prison Monday for plotting a bomb scheme in a crowded Chicago bar in 2012.
Prosecutors, however, wanted 25-year-old Adel Daoud to serve 40 years behind bars, The Associated Press reported. Daoud plotted attacks because he believed the West was at war with Muslims.
Authorities arrested Daoud on Sept. 14, 2012 at 18 years old after he pressed a button he thought would ignite a 1,000-pound bomb inside a vehicle. FBI agents issued the fake bomb, which smelled like diesel fuel and had special wiring.
Northern District of Illinois Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman questioned whether the FBI took advantage of Daoud’s immaturity. Coleman took his mental health into consideration when assigning the sentence, the news agency reported.
Daoud reportedly previously had visions of the Illuminati and “lizard people” controlling him, according to ABC 7 Chicago.
Adel Daoud, 25, was sentenced Monday for trying to kill hundreds of people by detonating what he believed was a real car bomb outside a Chicago bar in 2012. The detonator was fake and supplied by the FBI as part of a sting. https://t.co/gEFD3iq8rT
— HuffPost Crime (@HuffPostCrime) May 6, 2019
“It seems, with medication, he has come to understand the seriousness of the situation he faces,” Coleman said, the Chicago Tribune reported.
He was temporarily deemed as mentally ill in 2016 and was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
“He has been respectful and pleasant to this court … more so than any defendant I have had,” Coleman said Monday.
The 16-year sentence includes time for when he tried to have an FBI agent murdered and for assaulting an inmate with a shiv along with the bomb plot, ABC 7 reported.
“The sentence that the defendant received was only 16, so we are disappointed in the sentence,” U.S. Attorney John Lausch said, according to ABC 7. “It is notable though that the defendant also received 45 years of supervised release, which will have very stringent conditions, and that is significant.”
Daoud has served time while waiting for a trial, meaning he could be released in less than 10 years, the Tribune reported.
Daoud asserted his innocence while entering an Alford plea in November 2018, the AP reported. He did, however, understand the charges against him on a “factual basis.”
“This gives him a life,” Daoud’s lead attorney Thomas Durkin told reporters. “We can’t ask for anything more.”
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