Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy with mother Khadiga Metwally.
Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 28, was sentenced on Monday after pleading guilty to charges arising from the December 2020 attack at the US Penitentiary Allenwood, according to US Department of Justice. The additional term will run consecutively to his existing sentence, bringing his combined prison term to 90 years. Investigators said Bahnasawy attacked two officers on December 7 that year, using a weapon fashioned from part of a steel desk in his cell.
The first officer later lost his right eye as a result of the assault.
Assistant Attorney General John A Eisenberg said Bahnasawy had carried out the prison attack in the name of ISIS despite already serving time for an earlier terror conspiracy. “Today’s sentence will further ensure that Bahnasawy remains in prison, where he can do much less harm, for a very long time,” Eisenberg said. He stabbed one officer in the head and face before attacking a second officer who came to help, injuring her hand.
His original 40-year sentence stemmed from a plan to carry out mass-casualty attacks in New York City in 2016. Bahnasawy, then 20, worked with Talha Haroon and Russell Salic on a conspiracy involving bombings and shootings in crowded areas during Ramadan, according to prosecutors.
US Attorney Brian D Miller for the Middle District of Pennsylvania said the sentence reflected the government’s commitment to prosecuting people who commit violence on behalf of ISIS, including those who act from inside prison. FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Jarod Brown said the two officers survived the attack and stressed that violence motivated by ISIS or other foreign terrorist organisations would not be tolerated.