NEW YORK, Aug. 31 (UPI) -- Alleged Osama bin Laden aide Mahmoud Mamduh Salim was re-sentenced to life behind bars Tuesday for his horrific attack on a New York prison guard.
Salim had pleaded guilty to federal charges in the Nov. 1, 2000, attack on corrections officers Louis Pepe at the Metropolitan Correctional Center and had been sentenced in 2004 to 32 years in prison. Federal prosecutors appealed the sentence, resulting in the life term given him Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
Salim, allegedly a trusted associate of bin Laden, attacked Pepe while awaiting trial on charges in the embassy bombing case.
Salim and co-defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohammed used knives fashioned from a comb and hairbrush, honey-bear bottles filled with hot sauce, and ropes made of cloth and clear plastic wrap in the attack on Pepe. Salim knocked Pepe down, sprayed hot sauce into his eyes and shoved one off the knives in the guard's left eye.
Pepe was left blind in one eye and partially blind in the other, and is confined to a wheelchair. He has trouble speaking and requires nearly constant home health assistance.
In addition to the prison term, Salim, 52, also was ordered to pay $4.7 million in restitution, and to reimburse Pepe for his medical expenses, rehabilitation and lost income.
"By all accounts, officer Louis Pepe's heroic efforts on Nov. 1, 2000, helped prevent Mahmoud Mamduh Salim from shedding even more blood than he did," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement, adding the new sentence, "almost 10 years after the assault, provides at least a small measure of vindication for officer Pepe and his family."
