Global Courant
A convicted terrorist financier serving a 30-year sentence in US federal prison was recently released under the First Step Act after serving just 23 years, and said he would be “proud” to send money again to the same terrorist organization he was convicted of providing support to.
Mohamad Youssef Hammoud, a Lebanese national who immigrated to the US illegally in 1992, was convicted in 2002 of providing material support to Hezbollah, a Lebanon-based militant group classified as a terrorist organization by the State Department, in addition to a number of other charges.
Hammoud was initially sentenced to 155 years in prison, but the sentence was later lifted by the US Supreme Court. He was convicted again to 30 years in 2011.
The First Step Act, a criminal justice reform bill passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed into law by former President Donald Trump in 2018, provided Hammoud with a means to request an early releaseincluding through the statute of the law for release in mercy.
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Despite the opposition of the Biden administration against an early release of Hammoud on compassionate release grounds, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina granted the request on the basis of “a difference between his sentence and other sentences for similar conduct” and “the disproportionateness of his sentence caused by the application of the ‘terrorism amelioration’.”
It is unclear exactly when Hammoud was released, but court documents ordering his release ordered him to immediately turn himself in to immigration authorities for deportation. He arrived in Beirut on Wednesday for celebrations with friends and family, according to Alarabiya News, a Saudi Arabia-based outlet.
According to the report, Hammoud had multiple interviews with Hezbollah-affiliated media shortly after his arrival, in which he expressed no remorse for his actions and denied ever sending money to Hezbollah.
“I would be proud to send money to Hezbollah, and I could say I sent money to Hezbollah. But in 1999… I didn’t send a penny to Lebanon,” Hammoud said in a video shared by Alarabiya. In the video, he can be seen standing in front of a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, and late-Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone strike in 2020.
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A child holds a flag of the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement from a vehicle near the concrete border barrier with Israel, with graffiti showing Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock behind a mock hole and text in Arabic reading “Gate of Return” , at a rally in Lebanon’s southern city of Kfar Kila, May 25, 2022, as Lebanon marks the 22nd anniversary of Israel’s withdrawal from the south of the country, bordering Israel on one side and Syria and the Mediterranean Sea on the other side. (MAHMOUD ZAYYAT/AFP via Getty Images, File)
Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., a former U.S. Army officer, ripped Hammoud’s parole, accused the First Step Act of making America “more unsafe,” and called for its demise.
“We knew that the leniency of the bill put dangerous criminals back on the streets — but now we know it puts even terrorists back on the battlefield. Congress should repeal the First Step Act for the sake of public safety and justice,” said he.
Other Republicans have also targeted the First Step Act, including Florida presidential nominee and governor Ron DeSantis.
“Under the Trump administration he passed a bill, basically a jailbreak law, it’s called the First Step Act. It got dangerous people out of jail who have now offended some people again and really, really hurt them, DeSantis said in an interview with the Daily Wire last month.
Senator Tom Cotton, R-Ark., at the Capitol, May 5, 2022, in Washington, DC. (Tom Brenner/Getty Images, File)
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“So one of the things I’d like to do as president is go to Congress and ask for the repeal of the First Step Act. When you’re in prison, you have to serve your time. And the idea of them releasing people who have not been rehabilitated early so they can prey on people in our society is a big, big mistake,” he added.
Brandon Gillespie is an associate editor at Fox News. Follow him on Twitter at @brandon_cg.
