A trial judge was wrong to rule the stabbing by Mamdouh Mahmud Salim wasn't part of a terrorism plot, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said. As a terrorism case, Salim's sentence could be extended from 32 years to life in prison.
Salim was extradited to the United States after he was arrested in September 1998 in Munich, Germany, to face charges that he conspired with bin Laden in an international plot to kill U.S. citizens. The conspiracy included the August 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans.
While awaiting trial, Salim stabbed prison guard Louis Pepe in 2000 in a high-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. The attack left Pepe permanently brain damaged and barely able to see.
Prosecutors said the stabbing was part of a terrorism plot to take hostages and escape. The judge concluded Salim acted alone to influence the judge in the embassy bombing case to let him change lawyers, and to retaliate for the judge's refusal to do so sooner.