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Virginia Muslim Cleric Sentenced to Life for Inciting Terrorism
Posted: July 14, 2005
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An American-born Muslim cleric has been sentenced to life in prison for providing his followers instructions on how to reach a terrorist training camp run by the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremist group Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan.
Ali al-Timimi, 41, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema on July 13 in a federal courtroom in Alexandria, Virginia.
In April, Al-Timimi, a Fairfax County resident, was found guilty on six counts of counseling and advising his followers to engage in terrorist activities. The jury found that he encouraged a number of young Muslims, some of them American converts, to seek terrorist training in Pakistan and to use firearms and explosives to fight against coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Al-Timimi’s conviction is the 10th in the so-called “Virginia Jihad” case in which 11 Muslim men were charged with participating in paramilitary training to prepare for “holy war” abroad.
Al-Timimi, who frequently lectured at Dar Al Arqam Mosque in Falls Church, preached an extremist Islamic doctrine known as Salafiyya, often incorporating anti-Israel, anti-Semitic or anti-Western rhetoric.
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