2 Illinois men get 14, 16 years in Minnesota mosque bombing

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Two Illinois men who helped bomb a Minnesota mosque in 2017 on Tuesday received prison sentences far below the 35-year mandatory minimum that they had faced, after victims and prosecutors asked for leniency because the men cooperated and testified against the mastermind of the attack. Both testified in the 2020 trial against Emily Claire Hari, the leader of a small Illinois militia group called the “White Rabbits.” Hari was convicted in late 2020 and sentenced last year to 53 years in prison for the attack on Dar Al-Farooq Islamic Center, a mosque in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank said Tuesday that the men’s “substantial assistance” allowed him to issue penalties below the statutory minimums, the Star Tribune reported. Frank acknowledged the men were under Hari’s influence, but rejected their attorneys’ requests for 10-year sentences, saying their seven-month crime spree was “contrary to everything America stands for.” “When all is said and done,” Frank said, anything less would not “promote respect for the law.” No one was hurt in the Aug. 5, 2017, explosion after a pipe bomb exploded in the imam’s office as worshippers gathered for early morning prayers, but community members were shaken by the incident and the mosque’s executive director testified at Hari’s trial that it led to fear and diminished attendance. Omar called McWhorter and Morris two young men who “temporarily were plunged downwards into the darkness of Emily Hari’s world.” “The harm that was done is real, the crime that was committed is real, the horror of what happened that day is real, but what’s also real is our opportunity to offer real forgiveness, and lead by example,” the letter said.