Alabama Uzbek Who Plotted to Kill Obama Was Victim of Social Media, His Lawyer Says

By artappraiser on Fri, 07/13/2012 - 9:19pm |

By Robert Mackey, The Lede @ nytimes.com, July 13, 2012

Ulugbek Kodirov, a 22-year-old Uzbek man who moved to the United States planning to study medicine in New York, but ended up working in a suburban Alabama mall, was sentenced to more than 15 years in prison on Friday for plotting to kill President Obama on behalf of a jihadist group in Uzbekistan.

As The Associated Press reports, Mr. Kodirov’s lawyer, Lance Bell, blamed the Internet for radicalizing the young man, who moved to Alabama after giving up on a plan to get a medical degree at Columbia University because his English was not good enough. “I’m not calling him a victim,” Mr. Bell said, “but he’s a victim to a degree of social media.” [....]

URL:

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/13/alabama-uzbek-who-plotted-to-kill-obama-was-victim-of-social-media-his-lawyer-says/