His family alleges mental illness (how many times have we heard this lately with resettled refugees?). As we pointed out here in June 2011 when Yonathan Melaku was first arrested for shooting at the Pentagon and planning to deface graves at Arlington National Cemetery, this man most likely got to Northern Virginia as part of the large Ethiopian resettlement project of the US State Department.
And, how many times do we hear that Islamic radicalization occurs due to poverty and lack of opportunity? Time and again we see cases of radicalization happening among those refugees who actually grew up in America just like Melaku! Why? Because it isn’t poverty that drives Jihadists—-it is Islam itself! You gotta wonder how this guy even got through screeners* to be a Marine in the first place.
From the Washington Post:
A former Marine was sentenced to 25 years in prison Friday for firing shots at the Pentagon and other military facilities in 2010, but federal prosecutors said it was just the start of a violent campaign to register his anger at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [What! He didn’t know about those wars when he signed-up with the Marines in 2007!–ed]
Yonathan Melaku, 24, of Fairfax County told investigators that he wanted people to “be afraid for supporting the war,” so he fired at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Triangle twice, the Pentagon, and then at Marine Corps and Coast Guard recruiting centers in Northern Virginia. No one was injured.
When he believed that the public wasn’t heeding his message, he planned to deface 2,379 graves at Arlington National Cemetery, shoot at more buildings and then blow up a military fuel tanker truck, according to court documents.
“A terrorist instills fear in the public, and that’s exactly what you did,” U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee said before he sentenced Melaku in federal court in Alexandria. “You remind me of the snipers.”
Melaku was arrested in June 2011 at Arlington National Cemetery before he could carry out the rest of his campaign. He had a backpack full of spent shells, ammonium nitrate (a component of homemade explosives) and spray paint that he planned to use to scrawl Arabic phrases on the tombstones of those who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Last January, Melaku reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to three charges related to the shootings: injuring property of the United States, use of a firearm during a crime of violence and attempted injury to veterans’ memorials on U.S. property. The agreement called for a 25-year sentence.
In court Friday, Melaku did not speak about the crimes, but his attorneys and family members sketched a portrait of a young man who was delusional and suffering from schizophrenia.
Melaku’s attorneys said they had filed a motion asking for a judge to review the plea deal and had considered an insanity plea after a government doctor’s recent diagnosed mental illness. But on Friday, they withdrew the motion.
There is more, read it all.
Doesn’t look like any entrapment defense was possible here—he got caught in the act. Where is the comment from CAIR this time? Is this one of those “genuine plots?”
* I wonder if the Marines were so thrilled to recruit a Muslim that they ignored warning signs.