A former Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. employee who admitted to helping al-Qaeda scout the New York Stock Exchange for a possible terrorist attack was sentenced to 15 years in prison, amid growing concerns of sleeper terror cells in Europe and the U.S.
Wesam El-Hanafi’s effort to fight for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Somalia was rejected by the group’s leadership in Yemen, which instead sent him and his co-defendant Sabirhan Hasanoff back to New York, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Cronan said today in Manhattan federal court.
The two were ordered to carry out covert missions, including a possible attack on the New York Stock Exchange and another on a “large American dam,” Cronan said.
