A suburban Chicago man has been handed a 27-year sentence for his 2012 attempt to detonate an explosive in downtown Chicago. Adel Daoud, a 30-year-old resident of Hillside, Illinois, believed he was igniting a 1,000-pound car bomb at a bar in Chicago's Loop neighborhood, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois. Instead, Daoud fell into an FBI sting operation, the device in question being harmless, constructed by the Bureau during an undercover investigation into his activities—activities which included espousing violent jihad and seeking out ways to collaborate with active terrorists.
Daoud, who once aspired to violently reshape the world to his views, had originally received a 16-year sentence in 2019. But prosecutors aren't so easily swayed to let such plots gently into the night. They pushed an appeal through the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which led to reevaluating and ultimately extending Daoud's time behind bars, as per the U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of Illinois. In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly has ordered Daoud to remain under a lifetime of court-supervised release once he's served his time.
The announcement of this new, lengthier sentence was made by high-ranking members of the justice community, including Acting U.S. Attorney Morris Pasqual and Assistant Attorney General for National Security at the Justice Department, Matthew G. Olsen. The U.S. Attorney's Office detailed the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Barry Jonas and Tiffany Ardam, along with Trial Attorneys Bridget Behling and Kevin Nunnally of the Counterterrorism Section, in bringing this renewed sentence to pass.
