Three Muslims were sentenced for plotting to behead a terror witnesses in North Carolina.
Defendent Hysen Sherifi warned the judge he faced damnation at his sentencing hearing.
ABC Local reported:
A judge gave four life sentences Friday to a man already facing decades in federal prison for his role in a North Carolina terror plot.
Hysen Sherifi lectured federal Judge Earl Britt about Islamic teachings and warned the judge he faced damnation at his sentencing hearing.
Prosecutors say Sherifi conspired with his brother and a female friend to kill witnesses who testified against him about a plot with five other men in the Raleigh – Johnston County area to attack the U.S. Marine base at Quantico and targets overseas. In 2012, he was sentenced to 45 years in prison in the original case.
After Sherifi was convicted, prosecutors say he convinced his brother Shkumbin and former special education teacher Nevine Aly Elshiekh to help behead three confidential informants from his trial. He also wanted a fourth man killed who he said had defrauded his family out of more than $30,000.
The FBI learned of the plot through a jail informant and staged a fake hit on one of the witnesses. They even created bogus photos of the beheaded man to show to Hysen in his jail cell.
At sentencing Friday, Judge Britt said Hysen destroyed the lives of his brother and Elshiekh.
They were also sentenced Friday after pleading guilty last year to conspiracy to commit murder for hire at Hysen’s urging. Shkumbin Sherifi was given 36 months in prison and 36 months probation. Nevine Aly Elshiekh was sentenced to 42 months in prison and 36 months probation.
