Adel Daoud, plotter who wanted to use flying cars in Chicago terror attack, gets 16 years in prison
- Daoud’s lawyer called the prosecution another example of government overreach in an ineffective and seemingly never-ending war on terror
- At previous court appearances, Daoud had rambled incoherently about Freemasons and lizard people
A Chicago man was sentenced to 16 years in prison on Monday more than six years after pressing the detonator on what he thought was a 450kg (1,000 pound) car bomb outside a crowded bar.
US District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman imposed the sentence on 25-year-old Adel Daoud after a marathon three-day sentencing hearing last week at the Dirksen US Courthouse.
Daoud, who has been in custody since his arrest in the FBI sting in September 2012, faced a wide range of potential penalties. Prosecutors sought a sentence of 40 years in prison and a lifetime of court supervision once he is released. Daoud’s lawyers, meanwhile, had asked Coleman to place him in a mental health treatment programmes that could result in his release in time to enrol in college in fall 2021.
The sentencing hearing last week was more like a mini trial since Daoud, of Hillside, was allowed to enter his guilty plea in November without actually admitting he did anything wrong – an unusual arrangement known in federal court as an Alford plea.
In addition to terrorism charges stemming from the plot to bomb the Cactus Bar & Grill in Chicago, Daoud pleaded guilty to separate indictments accusing him of soliciting the murder of the undercover FBI agent at the centre of the sting operation and attacking a fellow inmate with a jailhouse shank while awaiting trial in 2015.