An Iraqi man convicted in a Kentucky terrorism case has asked a federal judge to give him access to his complete case file so he can try to withdraw his guilty plea.
U.S. District Judge Thomas B. Russell had not ruled on the request from 26-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi as of Friday morning.
Hammadi and 33-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan pleaded guilty in 2010 and 2011 to taking part in a plot to ship thousands of dollars in cash, machine guns, rifles, grenades and shoulder-fired missiles from Bowling Green, Kentucky, to al-Qaida in Iraq in 2010 and 2011. The pair was working with an FBI informant who squelched their plans.
Alwan is serving a 40-year sentence and Hammadi are serving a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Florence, Colorado.In a letter to his court-appointed attorney that was filed in the court record, Hammadi said he wanted to review the records to file motions to attack his guilty plea before the statute of limitations runs out.
The attorney, James Earhart of Louisville, asked Russell for guidance because prosecutors oppose the release without an order from the court.
A prior order in the case required that all evidence turned over to the defense be returned to prosecutors at the conclusion of the proceedings.