ALEXANDRIA -- A former third-grade teacher at a Muslim school was sentenced to 15 years in prison yesterday for providing support to a Pakistani terrorist organization.
Ali Asad Chandia, 29, who taught at the al-Huda school in College Park, Md., is one of 11 Muslim men convicted in what prosecutors called a "Virginia jihad network." The network involved a group of men who played paintball in the Virginia woods in 2000 and 2001 to train for global holy war.
...
The sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton was less than the 30 years sought by prosecutors and more than the five- to six-year range that defense lawyer Marvin Miller said would have been appropriate under the sentencing guidelines.
Miller noted that a 30-year sentence would be equal to that given to Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted of plotting with al-Qaida to assassinate President Bush. It also would be significantly more than some in the paintball group received after accepting plea bargains and admitting that they traveled to Pakistan and received training from Lashkar with the goal of fighting U.S. troops.
"You have a schoolteacher who gave a guy a ride, let him use a computer and helped him ship some paintballs, and they want 30 years, and I wonder where justice is," Miller said.
http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1149190211715&path=!news&s=1045855934842