American jihadist given 28-years in jail over plot to behead conservative blogger for IS

A Massachusetts man convicted of conspiring to support Islamic State militants in a 2015 plot to attack police and behead a conservative blogger wept on Tuesday as he asked forgiveness from a judge who sentenced him to 28 years in prison.

US District Judge William Young told David Wright, 28, that he had “embraced a monstrous evil” when he plotted with his uncle and a friend to travel to New York to attempt to behead conservative blogger Pamela Geller in an act of retribution for her having organised a “Draw Mohammed” contest.

The group never made the trip, as Wright’s uncle, Usaamah Rahim, lost patience and told his co-conspirators that he wanted to kill law enforcement officers in Massachusetts. Agents overheard that conversation, and when police approached Rahim in a supermarket car park to question him, authorities say he lunged at them with a knife and was shot dead.

“You are not a monster, yet you embraced a monstrous evil,” Young told Wright after sentencing him to less than the life in prison prosecutors had sought. “You’ve got to live with the fact that you sent your uncle out there to be killed.”

Wright, who was not present when his uncle was shot, was found guilty in October of plotting the New York attack as well as destroying evidence.