Omar Abdel Rahman, also known as the blind sheik, is serving life in prisonHe is serving a life sentence because the jury that convicted him didn't want to upset the Muslims, so they didn't sentence him to death. Osama bin Laden was watching, and concluded he could get away with anything in this country.
The French did that with Carlos the Jackal. Most of the terror of the 70’s was in order to get him released.