Vietnamese man pleads guilty to terrorism charges ahead of trial

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/08/vietnamese-man-pleads-guilty-terrorism-charges-al-qaida

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A Vietnamese man pleaded guilty to terrorism charges Friday, just weeks before a scheduled trial, agreeing not to challenge any prison sentence between 30 and 50 years.

Minh Quang Pham pleaded guilty in federal court to providing material support to a terror group, conspiracy and a weapons offense. Judge Allison Nathan set sentencing for 14 April, when Pham faces a minimum of 30 years and a maximum of life.

Wearing a prison uniform, Pham spoke in English as he described the crimes to which he pleaded guilty. He said he knew he was participating in terrorism directed at the United States when he provided material support in 2011 to al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula while he was in Yemen.

Related: London man accused of aiding al-Qaida faces life sentence in US after extradition

Pham, who had faced a trial in Manhattan scheduled to start in early February, said he assisted in the preparation of the group’s English propaganda publication, Inspire magazine. Reading from a statement he prepared with his defense attorneys, Pham said he also agreed in 2011 to receive military training from the organization, and he carried and used an automatic assault rifle.

Prosecutors said Pham went from the United Kingdom to Yemen in 2010 to pledge allegiance to the group. He was arrested at Heathrow International Airport when he returned in July 2011 from his six-month trip to Yemen.

“Minh Quang Pham sought and received military-style training from an al-Qaida affiliate with the intent to martyr himself and inflict harm on behalf of the group,” FBI assistant director Paul M Abbate said in a release.

Assistant US attorney Sean Buckley told the judge Friday that the government would have proven at trial that Anwar Al-Awlaki, a US-born al-Qaida leader who was killed in a drone strike in Yemen in September 2011, had directed Pham to detonate explosives made with household chemicals at London’s Heathrow Airport. Such an attack never occurred.

Prosecutors say al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has called on followers to attack civilians and has taken credit for coordinating attacks overseas, including the January 2015 Paris attack on the French publication Charlie Hebdo, which killed a dozen people.