By Pete Williams, NBC News Justice Correspondent
A federal appeals court Friday upheld the conviction of a U.S. citizen accused of plotting with al-Qaida to assassinate President Bush and carry out other terror attacks on American soil. But the court sent the case back to the trial judge with orders to impose a harsher sentence.
Abu Ali, the son of a man who worked at the Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, was found guilty by a jury of meeting up with al-Qaida recruiters in Saudi Arabia, where he was attending classes to further his Islamic studies. Saudi authorities arrested him in 2003 after discovering a terrorist cell in Riyadh.
He told his captors that he had taken al-Qaida weapons training. And in a videotaped confession, he said he agreed to help assassinate President Bush somewhere in the U.S. and to attack planes bound for the U.S. from other countries.
On Friday, by a vote of 2-1, a federal appeals court panel rejected claims by Ali's lawyers that his confession was coerced and that he was tortured, finding that the jury had ample evidence to conclude that he made his statements voluntarily. But the court said the trial judge wrongly imposed a sentence of 30 years in prison, rather than a term closer to the maximum allowed, life in prison. Ali, the trial judge had said, "never planted any bombs, shot any weapons, or injured any people, and there is no evidence that he took any steps in the United States with others to further the conspiracy."
Ali's case was similar to that of John Walker Lindh, the American who joined the Taliban, who was given a 20-year-prison sentence, the judge said in sentencing Ali. But the appeals court ruled that Ali's offenses were far more serious than those of Lindh, who was never accused of plotting terror attacks against the U.S. or of joining an al Qaeda conspiracy. "The degree of harm contemplated by Abu Ali was broader in scope and more devastating in terms of its potential impact," the court said.
Prosecutors praised today's decision. "Abu Ali was part of a dangerous al-Qaida cell that sought to carry out attacks against--and within--the United States," said Chuck Rosenberg, the U.S. attorney who handled the case.
Though the appeals court was divided, all three judges agreed on one point--the decision to try Ali in a regular civilian court rather than declaring him an enemy combatant and shifting his case to the U.S. military. "The criminal justice system does retain an important place in the ongoing effort to deter and punish terrorist acts without the sacrifice of American constitutional norms and bedrock values," all three judges said.
