in prison , federal prosecutors told CNN on Monday . In June 2003 , Saudi Arabian authorities detained Abu Ali in Medina , where he was participating in religious studies . During his 20-month detention in Saudi Arabia , he confessed to being a member of al Qaeda and to discussing the execution of a number of terrorist plots , including one to assassinate Bush . Prosecutors offered no evidence that those discussions morphed into a specific plan . However , they maintained that Abu Ali discussed boarding a U.S.-bound plane from Australia or England and flying it into targets on the U.S. East Coast . Abu Ali 's attorneys argued that his confessions were false and obtained through torture in Saudi Arabia before he was transported to the United States in February 2005 . At his 2006 sentencing , Abu Ali faced a sentence of 20 years to life , and prosecutors maintained that `` only a life sentence will protect the citizens of the United States from the defendant attacking again . '' But U.S. District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee rejected that claim , saying there was no evidence Abu Ali took any steps within the United States
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- An American convicted of being an al Qaeda operative was resentenced to life in prison Monday in a Virginia courtroom after an appeals court ruled his 30-year prison sentence was too lenient . Ahmed Omar Abu Ali , seated far left , appears in an artist 's rendering of a March 2005 court hearing . Ahmed Omar Abu Ali , a native of Falls Church , Virginia , was convicted in November 2005 of conspiring with al Qaeda and involvement in a possible plot to assassinate then-President George W. Bush . A federal appeals court , however , ruled the lower court did not sentence Abu Ali harshly enough and that its deviance from federal sentencing guidelines was unjustified . `` The defendant sought to destabilize our government and to shake it to its core , '' according to the 2008 ruling . `` To this day , he wishes he had succeeded . ... It is not too much to ask that a sentencing proceeding not lose sight of the immensity and scale of wanton harm that was and remains Abu Ali 's plain and clear intention . '' Abu Ali was resentenced to life