Second Circuit denies al-Qaida plotter’s bid for reduced sentence in foiled bombing

MANHATTAN (CN) — A Second Circuit panel on Monday denied the resentencing request of a convicted al-Qaida operative who is serving 30 years in jail for a foiled 2009 plot to bomb a busy shopping center in Manchester, England.

Abid Naseer, a Pakistani national who was living in Brooklyn, was arrested in the United Kingdom just days before the planned attack. Six years later, a federal jury found him guilty for providing support to al-Qaida by plotting a three-pronged scheme, which in addition to the Manchester shopping mall included targeting the New York CIty subway and a newspaper office in Copenhagen, Denmark.

But after new Supreme Court precedent threw a wrench in his conviction, a federal judge slashed his 40-year sentence by 10 years in 2022.

Naseer claimed that his new sentence should actually be 15 years, however, arguing the judge unfairly ordered two 15-year sentences to run consecutively instead of concurrently. Seeking a de novo resentencing, Naseer said the district judge abused their discretion by making that determination without a hearing.

The Second Circuit disagreed.

“Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to hold a de novo resentencing,” a panel of three circuit judges ruled Monday in a summary order.

The trio of judges — U.S. Circuit Judge Denny Chin, a Barack Obama appointee; U.S. Circuit Judge Sarah Merriam, a Joe Biden appointee; and U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Park, a Donald Trump appointee — found that the district judge understood “the rationale behind the original sentence.”

U.S. District Judge Raymond Dearie, a Ronald Reagan appointee in the Eastern District of New York, oversaw the three-week Brooklyn trial of Naseer in 2015 and ordered the initial punishment. The panel found he was thus justified in rendering the new 30-year sentence without bringing Naseer back to court.

The trial was a media spectacle, with MI5 officers testifying in wigs and makeup to mask their identities and the then-28-year-old Naseer representing himself throughout the proceedings by prepping for court from his jail cell.

After the jury convicted Naseer, Dearie found that a 40-year sentence was appropriate for Naseer’s role in the thwarted bombing scheme. The judge imposed a term of 40 years for using a destructive device in connection with a crime of violence, and two concurrent 15-year terms for providing material support to al-Qaida.

But new Supreme Court precedent, which raised the bar for what is considered a “crime of violence,” forced Dearie to vacate the destructive device count in 2022. He resentenced Naseer to have the two 15-year material support counts run consecutively instead of concurrently, keeping Naseer behind bars for a total of 30 years.

“I believe that had Mr. Naseer been given the opportunity that he deserved … that Judge Dearie may very well have decided to give him a different sentence,” Naseer’s attorney Randa Maher told the Second Circuit during oral arguments on March 3.

The court thought otherwise, ruling that Naseer didn’t adequately argue that his circumstances changed enough to warrant a de novo resentencing.

“Although Naseer ‘asked the court to reduce his sentence to 15 years, citing his record of academic excellence and good conduct during his year in prison,’ the district court found that those facts were ‘not surprising, given the qualities Naseer displayed throughout his trial and initial sentencing do not alter the sentencing calculus,’” the appellate judges said Monday.

The judges acknowledged Dearie’s finding that Naseer “continues to show no remorse” as further evidence that the district court “did not abuse its discretion in declining to conduct a de novo proceeding.”

Maher didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on Monday. A spokesperson for the Eastern District of New York, the district that led Naseer’s prosecution, declined to comment.

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