Associated Press
NEW YORK — An appeals court has upheld the life sentence given to a former Osama bin Laden aide who stabbed a federal prison guard in the eye in New York.
The federal appeals court in Manhattan on Friday upheld the sentence given to Mamdouh Mahmud Salim. Federal Judge Deborah Batts imposed the life sentence for what she called his “unusually cruel, brutal” attack in 2000 on guard Louis Pepe. The attack occurred at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. He was awaiting trial at the time in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Salim challenged the fact that he was only allowed to appear at sentencing on video. The appeals court agreed it was an error but said it did not require resentencing.