New York
New Yorkצילום: פלאש 90

A would-be synagogue bomber in New York City was sentenced to five years in prison on Friday, the New York Post reports.

Mohamed Mamdouh, 22, a naturalized citizen from Morocco, had pleaded guilty in a closed-court proceeding last year to conspiracy and weapons possession as crimes of terror.

His co-defendant, Algerian citizen Ahmed Ferhani, got a ten-year sentence last month as the scheme's mastermind.

The two had been taped during an eight-month NYPD undercover operation plotting to throw a grenade into an unspecified synagogue, and to wire multiple bombs to a single detonator so as to blow up several synagogues simultaneously.

Ferhani was arrested in a sting operation on Manhattan's West Side in May of 2011 as he purchased two operable Browning semi-automatic pistols, one operable Smith and Wesson revolver, ammo and an inert grenade from an undercover. Mamdouh was arrested as he waited a few blocks away.

"It is at once fitting and frightening that we are here on this New York City case only 11 days after the Boston marathon," assistant district attorney Gary Galperin said at Friday’s sentencing.

"It's a stark reminder that we live in a changed world," he said, according to the New York Post.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus said during the hearing, "The conduct contemplated is well beyond what can possibly be tolerated in a civilized society… That's especially apparent in light of recent arrests."

District Attorney Cyrus Vance, Jr. said the sentencing "marks the successful conclusion of New York's first state-level terror prosecution."

He added, "Hard work by local police and prosecutors continues to keep New York the safest big city in the United States."

After Ferhani’s arrest, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the two had discussed growing beards and curls to disguise themselves as Hasidic Jews. At one point Ferhani and Mamdouh had submitted a non-guilty plea to the terror plot.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American Desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)