Vietnamese-born al-Qaeda recruit sentenced to 40 years in US over plot to bomb Heathrow
Minh Pham returned to Britain after offering to carry out a suicide attack and being instructed to bomb civilians arriving at London’s busiest airport from Israel or America
A US judge sentenced a Vietnamese-born graphic designer who plotted to carry out a suicide attack at London’s Heathrow airport after training with al-Qaeda in Yemen to 40 years in prison on Friday.
Minh Pham, 33, broke down in tears after expressing regret in a New York courtroom and recognising the severity of his punishment in America five months after pleading guilty to terrorism charges.
A Muslim convert who left Vietnam as a baby and spent most of his life in Britain, Pham travelled to Yemen in December 2010 to receive military training from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), a group that has claimed repeated attacks on the West.
He returned to Britain – where he had left behind his eight-months-pregnant wife – in July 2011 after offering to carry out a suicide attack and being instructed to bomb civilians arriving at London’s busiest airport from Israel or America, the court heard.
“I made a very serious mistake,” Pham told Judge Alison Nathan before choking up at the prospect of spending decades in a maximum-security American jail separated from his family.