Monday, July 14, 2008

Woman gets 3 years for helping fiance flee

A judge sentenced a woman to three years in prison on Friday for helping her fiance flee from London after he failed in an attempted suicide bombing.

Fardosa Abdullahi, 20, helped Yassin Omar escape, dressed as a woman in a burka, after the failure of the bomb plot July 21, 2005.

Abdullahi had pleaded guilty last month but a court order had forbidden reporting the plea until Friday.

She is the last of 16 people who have either been convicted of or admitted to charges linked to attempts to detonate bombs on London subway trains and a bus. The attempts came two weeks after four suicide bombers killed 52 transit passengers in London.

Abdullahi became engaged to Omar four days before he tried to kill himself and others at the Warren Street Tube station.

Omar, who was arrested in Birmingham five days after the attempt, is one of four men sentenced to life in prison for the bombing attempts.

The woman's lawyers had urged that she not be jailed because she is pregnant, was vulnerable at the time of the offense and had a history of mental illness.

Judge Paul Worsley, however, told her that the message must go out that this court will not go soft of those who assist terrorists even those who are young, vulnerable and under pressure, as you undoubtedly were.

Popular Posts