50 years for ISIS terrorist who stabbed, blinded guard in US prison

A convicted Times Square bombing plotter received another 50 years after stabbing two prison guards in Pennsylvania.

By World Israel News Staff

A self-professed ISIS terrorist serving a 40-year prison sentence for plotting a 9/11-style attack in New York City has been sentenced to an additional 50 years behind bars for stabbing two prison guards, leaving one of the corrections officers partially blinded.

Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 28, a Kuwaiti-born Canadian citizen, received the additional sentence on Monday for a 2020 attack on guards at the US Penitentiary Allenwood in Pennsylvania. El Bahnasawy explicitly said the assault was motivated by his support for the Islamic State (ISIS).

“Today’s sentence will further ensure that Bahnasawy remains in prison, where he can do much less harm, for a very long time,” Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg said in a media statement announcing the additional sentence.

El Bahnasawy was already serving a 40-year sentence for his role in a conspiracy to carry out bombings in New York City. He had traveled from Canada to participate in a plot to detonate explosives in Times Square, with the aim of murdering and maiming civilians.

According to a New York Post report, El Bahnasawy repeatedly stabbed a prison guard in the face and head during the 2020 assault. He allegedly fashioned the weapon himself from a piece of steel stripped from the desk in his cell.

The officer sustained severe injuries and eventually lost an eye. A second corrections officer who intervened to help was stabbed in the hand but fully recovered.

El Bahnasawy left a note describing the assault as a “terrorist attack for the Islamic State,” according to reports.

Despite that statement, his attorney, Andy Frisch, argued that the attack was the result of a mental health crisis that prison authorities had failed to address.

“He’s not a terrorist,” Frisch told The Post, claiming that prison psychologists had diagnosed El Bahnasawy with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions.

Frisch described the stabbing as a “psychotic episode” and accused prison officials of disregarding emails from El Bahnasawy’s parents concerning his treatment regimen, including his medication.