An Algerian-born man who made a menacing phone call to a US lawyer who had organised an anti-terrorism rally has been sentenced to four years in prison after changing his plea from not guilty to guilty.
Ali Charaf Damache (47), now an Irish citizen, High Street, Waterford, had initially denied two charges of threatening to kill Michigan-based attorney Majed Moughni and sending him a menacing telephone message.
On the sixth day of his trial at Waterford Circuit Court, he pleaded guilty to sending the menacing message and the State entered a nolle prosequi in relation to the more serious charge.
Judge Donagh McDonagh yesterday sentenced him to four years’ imprisonment, backdated almost three years to when Damache was placed in custody when arrested on March 9th 2010, and suspended the last year of the sentence.
The defendant was then told he had no more time to serve in relation to this trial but was immediately rearrested in the courtroom by detectives working from an international arrest warrant, issued as part of a wider international investigation originating in the US.