WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday encouraged the Netherlands to impose a 25-year sentence on an Iraq war insurgent who admitted to conspiring to kill American troops, while acknowledging the actual time he’ll receive is beyond U.S. control.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman indicated he would approve the sentence agreed to as part of a plea deal with Wesam al-Delaema, who videotaped himself and others showing off roadside bombs they said they would use to kill Americans. Al-Delaema, a 36-year-old born and raised in Fallujah who became a Dutch citizen as an adult, is the first insurgent from the Iraq war prosecuted in U.S. courts.
Al-Delaema was extradited from the Netherlands two years ago in an agreement that said he would be tried in federal court _ not by a military commission, such as those set up for terror suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Under the deal, he also must be returned to the Netherlands after sentencing, where a Dutch judge will decide how much time he should serve under their system.
Friedman allowed both sides in the case to present lengthy evidence so that the Dutch judge will have a record to review. Law enforcement officials from Amsterdam were in the courtroom monitoring proceedings, which lasted six hours on Wednesday and were to continue Thursday.
The prosecutors aired about three dozen clips from the large video collection that Dutch authorities took from al-Delaema’s home when he was arrested. They included videos of insurgent attacks in Iraq and the key to the case _ a video taken with night-vision technology late on October 30, 2003.
That video shows al-Delaema and his fellow “Mujahedeen from Fallujah” showing off bombs buried in the sand along the road outside Fallujah. They wear hoods to hide their identity and pray they will kill U.S. troops.
“Today, with God’s help, and if the Americans enter, we will hit them with timed mine by way of remote,” al-Delaema says on one, according to a translation from Arabic.
Prosecutors said it’s impossible to know whether the bombs on al-Delaema’s video were detonated or killed any Americans. But they note that within the next 10 days, four Americans were killed in two roadside bomb explosions in the area.
Al-Delaema, wearing an orange jail jumpsuit and taking notes, listened through headphones to an Arabic translation of the court proceedings. At one point, he asked to have the court translator confirm that the government translations on the videotapes were correct, and Friedman agreed.
Friedman noted that he didn’t sign off on the deal to return al-Delaema to the Netherlands, but is bound by it nonetheless.
“If I had my way, I wouldn’t be giving an advisory opinion,” Friedman said. “I’d be saying 25 years is 25 years. … But I don’t have that authority.”
He said he hopes the Dutch judge will say the proceedings in the U.S. court were fair and reasonable and recognize that al-Delaema agreed to the 25-year sentence by pleading to one count of conspiracy to murder Americans outside the United States. He could have faced a life sentence if he went to trial.
Al-Delaema’s attorney, Robert Tucker, told Friedman that his client only agreed to the plea deal because they are confident he’ll serve less than 25 years in the Netherlands. Tucker said the United States has the most punitive sentencing laws in the world.
“Europe does not sentence like that,” he said. “Everybody understood as clear as a bell, including the government, that this sentence is going to be changed.”
Tucker also said his client agreed to the plea deal because it covers another charge he is facing _ aggravated assault in Washington’s Superior Court for a December 2007 attack on a corrections officer in the District of Columbia jail. Prosecutors said he kicked a prison guard to the point of unconsciousness, causing a subdural hemorrhage.
Tucker noted that any sentence al-Delaema received for that attack would not have been covered by the extradition agreement. He could have ended up serving up to 10 years in U.S. prison for that attack, but as part of the plea agreement it won’t keep him in the United States.
(This version CORRECTS style on mujahedeen in 6th graf.) )
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