US man gets 30 years for IS-inspired Capitol bomb plot

Christopher Lee Cornell arrested six days before plan to detonate explosives and shoot people during Obama 2015 State of Union

By AFP 6 December 2016, 8:56 am

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The Senate's side of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC. (Wikipedia/Scrumshus/Public Domain)

WASHINGTON – A US court dealt a 30-year jail sentence to an American man Monday who had planned to bomb the Capitol in Washington in the name of the Islamic State group.

Christopher Lee Cornell, of Green Township, Ohio, had pleaded guilty in federal court in southern Ohio to charges of planning and attempting to kill government officials in the January 2015 plot.

Cornell, 22, was arrested on January 14, 2015, six days before he had planned to detonate explosives and to shoot people in the Capitol during President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, according to the Justice Department.

For months, the agency said, he had researched how to make bombs, and acquired two semi-automatic rifles with about 600 rounds of ammunition.

Christopher Lee Cornell plotted to attack the US Capitol in Washington and kill government officials inside it and spoke of his desire to support the Islamic State militant group, the FBI said on January 14, 2015. (photo credit: AP Photo/Butler County Jail)

He had admitted that the attack was an attempt to provide support for Islamic State, which the US has designated a terrorist organization.

“Cornell plotted to commit violence as a symbolic attack on the United States as a whole,” US Attorney Benjamin Glassman said in a statement.

“Cornell wanted to inflict pain on the spirit of the entire country, and terrorize its leadership. Today’s sentence appropriately holds him accountable for that.”