Oregon Muslims Sentenced as Taliban Wannabes
NewsMax.com Wires
Monday, Feb. 9, 2004
PORTLAND, Ore. The final three members of a group of
Muslim men from the Portland area who tried to enter Afghanistan to
join the Taliban were each sentenced to prison time Monday.
They were among six men and one woman accused of conspiring to
wage war on the United States.
Palestinian-born Maher Hawash, 39, was sentenced Monday to seven
years in prison. Ahmed Bilal, 25, was sentenced to 10 years, and his
brother, Muhammed, 23, was sent to prison for eight years.
Hawash, a former Intel software engineer, was the last of the
group to be arrested. The Bilal brothers, among the original group
of those arrested in October 2002, had pleaded guilty to charges of
conspiring to help al-Qaida and the Taliban and to firearms
charges.
Two other men who were allied with the Bilal brothers and Hawash
have already been sentenced to 18 years in prison. The federal
government has said the sixth man, alleged ringleader Habis Abdulla
al Saoub, 37, was killed in a shootout in Pakistan.
The lone woman in the group, October Lewis, was sentenced to
three years in prison after she pleaded guilty to wiring money to
the group to assist their efforts.
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