Times sheds bitter tears

NYC: Hizballah sleeper agent gets 40 years for jihad terror activity, New York Times sheds bitter tears

DEC 7, 2019 5:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER10 COMMENTS

The New York Times describes Ali Kourani as a “Lebanese immigrant,” for an audience that believes Donald Trump is a new Hitler for wanting to restrict mass immigration. The New York Times wants you to think Kourani’s sentencing was unjust. Emily Palmer of the Times mentions in passing, but doesn’t bother to give you full information, much less details, about how Kourani collected information on the Toronto and JFK airports and US government facilities. What’s in it for the New York Times?

“A Sleeper Agent Wanted to Cooperate. He Just Got 40 Years in Prison.” By Emily Palmer, New York Times, December 4, 2019:

He was a Lebanese immigrant named Ali Kourani, and he told the F.B.I. that he was a sleeper agent for a terrorist organization. He said he was scouting targets in New York City for possible attacks, including airports and government offices, while leading a second life as a telephone salesman and family man.

The plan, he told agents, was for him to become a suicide bomber.

Over a series of five meetings, Mr. Kourani believed he was offering this and other information to the F.B.I. in exchange for leniency from the United States government and protection for his family.

But instead, the F.B.I. arrested him in June 2017 and charged him with eight counts related to terrorism. In May, a Manhattan jury convicted Mr. Kourani on all charges — largely as a result of what he had told the agents.

On Tuesday, in federal court in Manhattan, Mr. Kourani was sentenced to 40 years in prison, less than the life sentence prosecutors had sought but more than his lawyer said he deserved. In the end, he told the court that the government was “overreaching” and that his ties to the terrorist organization Hezbollah were strictly political.

Since his arrest, Mr. Kourani has maintained that many of the statements he gave the F.B.I. were false, and his lawyer has said his client was duped into cooperating with the government.

In addressing the court on Tuesday, Mr. Kourani told the judge that he was still willing to help the American government, and that law enforcement should look into the three aliases associated with Hezbollah that he had provided to the F.B.I. “I didn’t lie about that,” he said….