A California court sentenced a man, who wanted to join Taliban, to 15 years in jail for attempting to blow up an Oakland bank, Thursday.
Matthew Aaron Llaneza, 29, of San Jose, tried to bomb a bank after he was supplied with fake explosives in a sting operation carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation last February. Had it not been for his mental health issues, Llaneza would have received jail term of 30 years.
According to the U.S. District Judge Virginia Gonzalez Rogers, 15 years of imprisonment is an appropriate sentence as it recognises his mental condition and punishes him for actions that "by their nature are terrorist," reports the Associated Press.
Llaneza was arrested February 8, 2013, after he tried to blow up a car outside Bank of America, Oakland. The court documents in San Francisco said that the vehicle was packed with fake bombs that he planned to blast with cellphones.
During the sting operation, the federals, who posed as Taliban operatives, said that Llaneza wanted to commit violent acts in the name of Islam before departing the country.
The prosecutors argued that the San Jose native was committed Islamist militant, while his lawyer defended him by saying that he could not have staged such an act on his own and without the help and provoking of FBI agents who disguised themselves as Talibani terrorists, reports the Inquisitr.
"Matthew was not not a radicalized jihadist but rather a delusional, severely mentally disturbed young man," said Assistant Public Defender Jerome Matthews. "He had no technical skills to speak of."
In their petition for lenience, Llaneza's parents said "the conduct he pleaded guilty to is very out of character for him, and we never ever would have thought he would come up with an idea like he has been accused of. We believe someone would have to of [sic] put this idea in his head for him to follow through with such a lack of judgment, which he seems not capable of making by himself."
