Texan gets 25 years in prison for Saudi envoy plot
NEW YORK —
A U.S. citizen-turned-covert Iranian operative was sentenced to 25 years in prison Thursday for plotting to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington restaurant.
Manssor Arbabsiar, a former used car salesman from Corpus Christi, Texas, had pleaded guilty in October to two conspiracy charges and a murder-for-hire count alleging he was directed by the Iranian military to hire a Mexican drug cartel to carry out the assassination. U.S. agents disrupted the plot.
Defense attorneys sought to convince the judge that their Iranian-born client deserved only a 10-year term. In court papers, they had argued his crimes were "the result of a severe mental breakdown caused by a long-standing, untreated bipolar disorder," and that he had no previous involvement in terrorism or "international intrigue."
Arbabsiar, 58, asked for mercy before hearing his sentence in federal court in Manhattan.
More at http://www.statesman.com/ap/ap/crime/sentence-due-in-ny-ambassador-plot-case/nX6hN/ .
Additional coverage at http://www.caller.com/news/2013/may/30/sentence-due-today-corpus-christi-man-accused-saud/ .