A Manhattan judge agreed to release early a terrorist and former minion of Osama bin Laden convicted in two bombings on United States embassies because his weight puts him at risk of contracting the coronavirus.
Adel Abdel Bary, a 230-pound 60-year-old, spent over 20 years behind bars for conspiring to bomb two U.S. embassies located in Africa in 1998 that killed 224 people, including 12 Americans. But he’s walking the streets of the United Kingdom as a free man because he was at risk of becoming ill with COVID-19.
“Defendant’s obesity and somewhat advanced age make COVID-19 significantly more risky to him than to the average person,” wrote U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in October in granting the early release. “And his continued incarceration increases his risk of catching the virus. In these circumstances, the benefit to society of requiring defendant to serve the final few weeks of his sentence does not outweigh the serious health risks he faces.”
The convicted terrorist was set to be released on Oct. 28 after serving his sentence fully, but his lawyers argued for an early release amid the pandemic, arguing that his weight, age, and asthma “could wreak disastrous health outcomes.” He was released from prison on Oct. 9.
In justifying the early release, Kaplan cited English playwright William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
“This is a case in which the earthly power of the United States should allow mercy to season justice,” he wrote.
Prosecutors also agreed that the “defendant’s obesity is an extraordinary and compelling reason that could justify a reduction of his sentence in light of the current pandemic.”
Bary was then released from Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility this week, where he was subsequently handed over to U.K. officials. U.K. officials did not send him back to his native country of Egypt, where he was a lawyer, because he would be put at serious risk of torture or death. Bary was granted asylum by the U.K. in 1997, according to the Sun.
R. Andrew Painter, Bary’s immigration lawyer, told the New York Times in November, “After all this time, all Mr. Bary wants is to enjoy a quiet life with his family.”
Edith Bartley, whose younger brother and father were among those killed in the attacks on the 1998 bombings, told the New York Times that she is concerned about what might happen after his release.
“Just serving a sentence doesn’t mean that a person has been rehabilitated, doesn’t mean that their core thinking has changed. This is a person who can still do harm in the world,” she said.
