At the Cook County Circuit Courthouse in Chicago, three activists accused of plotting to firebomb high-profile targets including President Obama’s campaign headquarters during the 2012 NATO Summit were sentenced on Friday for possessing an incendiary device and mob action.
Known in media reports as the "NATO 3,” the men sentenced were Jared Chase, 29, of Keane, N.H., who received a jail term of eight years; Brent Betterly, 25, who got six years; and Brian Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., who got five years.
Despite Cook County prosecutors’ wish to see the men serve 14-year sentences, Judge Thaddeus Wilson allowed them to receive credit for time served – effectively halving their sentences, which could result in their release in less than six months, according to the defense team.
In February, the three men were acquitted of much more serious terrorism counts.
“We weren’t serious about what we said,” Betterly told the judge before sentencing. “They were just words. Because of those transgressions, I’ve lost two years of my life.”
The NATO 3 were arrested after an undercover police investigation in 2012 by officers Nadia Chikko and Mehmet Uygun resulted in the raid and discovery of four beer bottles in the men's possession, which contained what was reportedly gasoline.
However, court testimonies by Chikko and Uygun revealed through their own taped recordings that they had encouraged and egged on the three men to commit acts of violence around the time of the NATO Summit in Chicago, creating the appearance of police entrapment.
The trial of the NATO 3 became a highly politicized – though under-reported – event in which prosecutors attempted to portray the young men as dangerous terrorists while the defense argued that they were more like “goofs.” Judge Wilson on Friday chose a middle-of-the-road approach, remarking, “The defendants are not the three musketeers, but they were not the three stooges.”
“No matter what they do in other countries,“ the judge continued, “Americans will not stand for throwing Molotov cocktails in the street.”
Finally, it was the issue of police entrapment that came to dominate the case – revealing the strategies and ways that U.S. law enforcement now routinely operate, going undercover as informants in order to incite and encourage young men to commit violent acts for which they are then arrested and accused of terrorism.
For this reason, State Attorney Anita Alvarez's maniacal comparison of the NATO 3 to the Boston Bombers not only shouldn’t be taken seriously – but should be publicly derided for the falsehood and fear-mongering it represents in today's terrorism-hyped justice system.
The U.S. government maintains that public safety is its top priority, yet has consistently acted in recent years to make America less safe by executing innocent people across the world in drone strikes – thereby creating the very enemies and "terrorists" it purports to be targeting.
Perhaps America hasn't learned as much as it likes to think since 9/11 and the Boston Bombing. Jared Chase, Brent Betterly and Brian Church were activists caught up in a police-orchestrated plot. The fact that the prosecution was bold enough to accuse them of "terrorism" insults the victims of crimes that were really of that magnitude.
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