hollywoodtone.blogspot.com US woman known as 'Jihad Jane'gets 10 years jail
hollywoodtone.blogspot.com US woman known as 'Jihad Jane'gets 10 years jail
Philadelphia - Colleen LaRose, 50, an American woman who called herself 'Jihad Jane' online was jailed for 10 years, Monday, for her part in a plot to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims, but prosecutors had wanted a much longer sentence handed down.
'Jihad Jane', also known as Fatima Rose, allegedly became obsessed with Jihad. It filled her thoughts day and night and she claimed she lived in a "trance". Online she used her Jihad name to recruit would be killers, after she joined a plot to kill a Swedish artist, Lars Vilks; an artist whose cartoons offended Muslims. He had created a series of drawings depicting the head of the Muslim Prophet Mohammad on a dog, and there was a price on his head.
Investigators said she was part of a 2009 conspiracy to target Mr Vilks over his drawings. Muslim extremists in Iraq had offered a 100,000 dollars for anyone who killed Mr Vilks, who was never attacked.
The Justice Department said Ali Charaf Damache, who was living in Ireland, recruited LaRose and another US woman via jihadist websites. Damache married the other woman, Jamie Paulin-Ramirez, on the day she arrived in Ireland.As Digital Journal reported LaRose was arrested on October 16, 2009 at the Philadelphia airport after she returned from London, and told FBI Agents that if they released her she was planning a suicide attack against U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a NBC report. According to the FBI LaRose and fellow conspirators "recruited men on the Internet to wage violent jihad in South Asia and Europe and recruited women on the Internet who had passports and the ability to travel to and around Europe in support of violent jihad", but LaRose grew increasingly frustrated at the lack of action. Assistant US Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams said.
LaRose returned to the US in 2009 to surrender, becoming one of the few women ever charged in the country with terrorist activities. Her arrest was kept secret and only revealed after Paulin-Ramirez and the six others were rounded up in Ireland months later.LaRose, 50, from Pennsylvania, had experienced a tough life; both the prosecution and defense in her trial agreed on that score. She lived an isolated life and had experienced years of abuse. The judge chose the fairly lenient sentence of 10 years which means she could we free in just over four. LaRose has already served time during the trial, which will be taken into account. The prosecution, however, still view LaRose as a dangerous individual and argued she should receive a decades long sentence. Reportedly the reason for the leniency was the judge accepting a government request to reduce the sentence because of her "extensive cooperation with investigators". As for the potential target, Lars Vilk, the BBC reports he believed LaRose could be set free.
"I don't think she's dangerous anymore because now everything is [out in the open] and I don't think she's able to do anything more that could be dangerous," he said. "From my point of view there is nothing to gain from putting her behind bars."As for LaRose she now says "I don't want to be into jihad no more." Her co-conspirators Jamie Paulin Ramirez and Mohammad Hassan Khalid, are scheduled to be sentenced later this week.
hollywoodtone.blogspot.com US woman known as 'Jihad Jane'gets 10 years jail