Kansas Muslim faces sentencing for jihad suicide bomb plot at airport
August 30, 2015 4:28 pm By Robert Spencer 16 Comments
“I expect to be called a terrorist (which I am), a psychopath, and a homicidal maniac.” Yeah, probably. And all who oppose you and your comrades will be called racists, bigots, and Islamophobes.
Terry Loewen2
“Kansas man faces sentencing for plotting suicide bomb attack at Wichita airport,” by Roxana Hegeman, Associated Press, August 30, 2015:
WICHITA, Kan. — A Kansas man’s odyssey into terrorism culminated when he tried to bring a van filled with inert explosives onto the tarmac at the Wichita airport where he worked, an attack prosecutors say was aimed at causing “maximum carnage” during which Terry L. Loewen would die as a martyr.
“I expect to be called a terrorist (which I am), a psychopath, and a homicidal maniac,” he wrote in a letter that investigators later found in his house.
But the plot unraveled on Dec. 13, 2013, when it was revealed to be an elaborate FBI sting operation in which two agents posed as co-conspirators. At the time, Loewen was an avionics technician for Hawker Beechcraft’s facility at Mid-Continent Airport, now called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport. He was arrested as he tried to use his employee badge on a card reader to bring the fake bomb onto the tarmac.
Loewen, now 60, pleaded guilty in June to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, and is scheduled to be sentenced Monday. U.S. District Judge Monti Belot has already said he was “almost certain” to accept the 20-year proposed sentence that came with the plea deal. If he rejects it, Loewen would be allowed to withdraw his plea.
Loewen’s case is among at least 462 terror crimes associated with groups such as al-Qaida and the Islamic State that the U.S. government has prosecuted since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, a nonpartisan research and educational institute dedicated to security issues.
A 20-year prison term would be higher than the national average of 18 years for terrorism undercover operations, said Karen Greenberg, the director of the New York City-based center.
“There is something about this case which really stands out, which is the suicide part of it. We don’t see a lot of it,” she said, adding that more than a quarter of terrorism cases involve undercover stings similar to the one which ensnared Loewen….
http://www.jihadwatch.org/2015/08/kansas-muslim-faces-sentencing-for-jihad-suicide-bomb-plot-at-airport
