WICHITA, Kan., Aug. 31 (UPI) — The man who attempted to carry out a suicide attack nearly two years ago at Wichita Dwight D. Eisenhower National Airport — an attack he said was intended to inflict “maximum carnage” — was sentenced Monday to serve 20 years in federal prison.
Terry Lee Loewen, a recently converted Muslim, was an avionics technician at the airport when he attempted to drive a vehicle he believed was packed with explosives onto the tarmac in December 2013.
Authorities said he used his airport security pass to gain entry to the runway, and was planning to detonate the vehicle near a populated sector of the airport — effectively making his plot a suicide bombing.
However, federal authorities had previously intercepted Loewen’s plot and foiled it by giving him dummy explosives. He was arrested by agents on the airport tarmac.
He pleaded guilty to terror-related charges in June and formally received his sentence during a brief court hearing Monday.
Loewen apologized to his wife and sons during Monday’s sentencing hearing, and said he realizes the “pain and suffering” he has caused, KSN-TV reported. He also apologized to his extended family and friends.
Loewen, 60, planned the attack for months and intended it to be a “martyrdom operation.” Loewen became a radicalized Islamist after reading extremist material on the Internet, officials said.
“As time goes on I care less and less about what other people think of me, or my views of lslam,” he told an undercover FBI agent in 2013, according to the charging document. “I feel so guilt-ridden sometimes for knowing what’s required of me but yet doing little or nothing to make it happen. I love my Muslim brothers and sisters.”
The FBI said Loewen was attempting to support al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula with his suicide plot, and that he idolized radical Islamic leaders — particularly 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
“Brothers like Osama bin Laden and Anwar al Awlakle are a great inspiration to me, but I must be willing to give up everything (like they did) to truly feel like a obedient slave of Allah,” Loewen wrote in August 2013 to the undercover agent.
After he is released from prison in two decades, Loewen will then be under federal supervision for the rest of his life as part of his plea deal with prosecutors.
Prosecutors said health problems for Loewen factored into their recommendation of 20 years in prison.
During one of his communications with agents in late 2013, Loewen ironically foreshadowed the sentence that was handed down Monday.
