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January 18, 2013

Chicago man sentenced to 14 years

By Tammy Webber and Jason Keyser Associated Press

CHICAGO — A Chicago businessman was sentenced to 14 years in prison Thursday for providing material support to overseas terrorism, including a Pakistani group whose 2008 attacks in Mumbai, India, left more than 160 people dead.

Tahawwur Rana did not address the court before U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber imposed the sentence and did not react afterward. But his defense attorneys said the judge was right to reject prosecutors’ arguments that Rana deserved a stiffer sentence because the charges were related to terrorism.

Jurors in 2011 convicted Rana of providing support for the Pakistani group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and for supporting a never-carried-out plot to attack a Danish newspaper that printed cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in 2005. The cartoons angered many Muslims because pictures of the prophet are prohibited in Islam.

But jurors cleared Rana of the third and most serious charge of involvement in the three-day rampage in Mumbai, India’s largest city.

“We think the judge made the right ruling,” defense attorney Patrick Blegen said, adding that he intends to appeal Rana’s conviction because the judge refused to separate the Denmark and Mumbai charges. “It had always been our belief that it would be very difficult to get a fair trial if he had to face charges for two separate plots at once.”

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