Canadian teen who plotted U.S. attacks appeals conviction, 40-year sentence

The conviction and 40-year prison sentence for a young mentally ill Canadian who plotted terrorist attacks in New York City should be set aside, his lawyer argues in a new appeal brief.

The brief on behalf of Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy argues the trial judge violated his rights and the sentence handed down to him last December was unreasonably harsh.

“In relegating the young and impaired Bahnasawy to a virtual life in prison without proper care, the District Court gave lip service, but little more, to all of the mitigating factors that compelled a humane sentence.”

Canadian prisons provide the kind of mental-health care that inmates like El Bahnasawy need, while the U.S. Bureau of Prisons does not, according to the factum filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

Court records show El Bahnasawy was a 17-year-old living at home in Mississauga when he met an undercover FBI agent online. The defence argued the agent encouraged him to plan attacks on the Big Apple, while prosecutors maintained the plot was well underway before the two connected.

The FBI, with help from the RCMP, arrested the then-18-year-old at a hotel on the outskirts of New York in May 2016.

El Bahnasawy pleaded guilty to terrorism charges in District Court for the Southern District of New York in 2016. The plans involved conspirators arrested in Pakistan and the Philippines and called for attacks on the New York subway and Times Square.

The submission by lawyer Andrew Frisch decries the lengthy sentence Judge Richard Berman imposed despite evidence about El Bahnasawy’s youth, mental illness and severe addictions. The judge, who said the risk of a repeat offence was high, ignored El Bahnasawy’s treatment progress and disavowal of violence, his lawyer says.