A federal judge has canceled the Dec. 18 sentencing date in the terrorism case of Mohamed Mohamud after the government's admission last week that it relied on warrantless wiretaps authorized by a controversial law to make its case against him.
The cancellation by U.S. District Judge Garr King comes as the “court anticipates motions to be filed” based on that new information, according to the notation in the case docket. “If sentencing remains appropriate, the court will reset the sentencing hearing after it rules on the anticipated motions,” the entry states.
Mohamud, a Somali American, was convicted in January of a Nov. 26, 2010, attempt to detonate what he thought was a bomb at Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square for the city’s annual tree-lighting ceremony. The bomb was a fake presented to Mohamud by undercover FBI agents.
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Prosecutors seek a minimum 40-year sentence, and a report filed by U.S. probation officials recommends a life sentence, according to court records. Mohamud’s attorneys are asking for a 10-year sentence.
Federal prosecutors disclosed last week that they offered evidence in court proceedings that was derived from warrantless surveillance of a foreign target outside the U.S. under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978. FISA, as it is known, allows intelligence agencies to physically and electronically eavesdrop on U.S. citizens and legal residents suspected of acting as agents of foreign governments. Many of the government's targets are later charged criminally as terrorists or spies.
The FBI has been authorized to eavesdrop on at least 16 Oregon targets since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
The law was amended in 2008 to allow the U.S. to electronically eavesdrop on foreign targets even when the surveillance happens to pick up the emails or phone calls of Americans.
-- Helen Jung