A U.S. federal judge in the midwestern state of Kansas sentenced an airlines electronics technician to 20 years in prison Monday for plotting to set off a car bomb at a Wichita airport in 2013.
Terry Lee Loewen, who worked at the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport, pleaded guilty in June to charges of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. He admitted wanting to kill as many people as possible.
Undercover agents from the FBI began to communicate with Loewen after he became a Facebook friend of someone who wrote about violent jihad.
The 60-year-old Loewen told one agent that he was wafting for Allah to give him the go-ahead to carry out a violent attack against civilians.
Another agent helped him build a bomb that Lowewn did not know was a fake.
Prosecutors say Loewen abused his privileged airport access for terrorist purposes.
