Before sentencing would-be Times Square terrorist Faisal Shahzad to life in prison, federal judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum sparred with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, the relevance of any of it to his penalty, says the New York Times. “I do hope that you will spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people,” she told him.
The case started with the discovery of a potentially lethal bomb in Times Square on May 1. Shahzad, 31, launched into a soliloquy at times rambling, at times threatening, and delivered with what the Times called “the crinkly-eyed grin of a man who acted as if he could not be happier than where he was at that moment. “This is but one life,” he said. “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”