Oregon man sentenced for helping people linked to Pakistan suicide bombing

[June 20, 2015]  By Courtney Sherwood
 
 PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - A former Portland city worker was sentenced on Friday to 87 months in federal prison for providing support to people linked to a suicide bomb attack on the headquarters of Pakistan's intelligence service in 2009 that killed about 30 people.

Reaz Qadir Khan pleaded guilty in February to paying $2,450 to one of the suicide bombers responsible for the attack in Lahore and to providing assistance to the bomber's surviving wives after the bombing, which also wounded some 300 people.

Prosecutors argued in court that by helping the bomber's wives Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, hindered their investigation.

Defense attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

Khan, a married father of three who had worked as a wastewater treatment plant operator for the Portland city government, was arrested in 2013 after a four-year investigation, officials said.

According to charging documents, he began conspiring with the family of Ali Jaleel of the Maldives in 2005, and Khan's financial support allowed Jaleel to attend a training camp to prepare for the attack on Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence headquarters.

"No community should be subjected to the dangers posed by those seeking to assist violent extremists, whether here or abroad," acting U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said in a statement.

The Pakistani government said at the time of the car bomb attack that it was carried out in apparent revenge for an army offensive against Taliban militants in that nation's northwestern Swat region.

U.S. prosecutors said a video released by al Qaeda soon afterward showed Jaleel taking responsibility for the attack, as well preparing at a training camp believed to be in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

(Editing by Curtis Skinner and Toby Chopra)

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