|
Dearborn man gets 10 years for trying to help Hezbollah
A federal judge on Friday sentenced a former Ford Motor Co. engineer to 10 years in prison for trying to supply global positioning satellite equipment and other materials to the terrorist group Hezbollah. "You allowed the depth of your feeling for what was happening in your homeland to overcome your judgment," U.S. District Judge Gerald E. Rosen told Fawzi Mustapha Assi, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen. "These were serious misjudgments." Assi, 49, of Dearborn, who has been in custody since May 2004 and will be given credit for the time he has already served, pleaded guilty in 2007 to providing material support to terrorists. He was charged a decade ago -- in 1998 -- after federal agents stopped him at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, where he was about to board a flight to Lebanon carrying GPS equipment, night vision goggles and a thermal imaging camera. Assi was the first person indicted under a 1996 law that made it illegal to knowingly provide money or material to terrorists. The U.S. State Department designated Hezbollah a terrorist group in 1997. "I took it upon myself to help people who were under occupation," said Assi, who continued to argue the law under which he was convicted is unconstitutional. Assi's family members packed Rosen's courtroom Friday. His brother, Sami Assi, said it will be painful to know Fawzi Assi will have to spend several more years locked up. "We will pray for him to (serve) his time and come back to his family," Sami Assi said after the sentencing hearing. Posted by: Fred 2008-12-13 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=257092 |