Teacher in US gets 15 years for LeT links

WASHINGTON, APRIL 26: A District Court in the US has sentenced a former schoolteacher for the second time to 15 years in prison after an appeals court directed it to reconsider the original conviction for providing material aid to anti-India terrorist outfit Lashkar e-Toiba (LeT).

The District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, on Friday handed down the sentence for Ali Asad Chandia, a former teacher at a Muslim school who was a part of the “Virginia jihad network” and convicted of providing material aid to the LeT, which has been active in anti-India terrorist activities in India.

Chandia was convicted in 2006 of providing military support to the militant organisation and was one of a dozen men convicted by the US Government for training for a “holy war” around the world.

The former school teacher was found guilty of acting as an assistant to LeT leader Mohammed Ajmal Khan on his visits to the US in 2002 and 2003 and helping Khan transfer 50,000 paintball pellets to Pakistan.

Chandia’s lawyer, according to a report in The Washington Times, has said he will again appeal against the sentence.

A federal appeals court in the United States had earlier this year ordered a new hearing for Chandia, saying the judge needed to explain why he applied a so-called “terrorism enhancement” that more than doubled his prison term.

This time around Judge Claude Hilton at the District Court said the enhancement was appropriate as Chandia was aware of the violent actions of the group he was helping.

The LeT, accused of operating several militant training camps in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and linked to Al Qaeda, was founded by Pakistan-based Islamist leader Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, who has vowed to separate Jammu and Kashmir from India.

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