Man who pleaded guilty in Wichita airport bombing attempt to be sentenced

The man who pleaded guilty in a failed suicide bombing plot at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport in December 2013 will be sentenced Monday in federal court, capping a case that started with a federal sting operation more than two years ago.

Terry Lee Loewen, 60, faces 20 years of federal imprisonment after pleading guilty this summer to one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. He came under the scrutiny of FBI agents in May 2013, about seven months before he tried driving a van loaded with inert explosives onto the airport tarmac.

The bomb plot, authorities have said, was Loewen’s attempt at carrying out violent jihad, or a holy war. His goal was to inflict maximum carnage at the airport just before Christmas, prosecutors allege.

Loewen is due before district Judge Monti Belot at 1:30 p.m. Monday for sentencing. The hearing will take place at the federal courthouse, 401 N. Market.

Loewen was charged with three counts in the suicide-bombing plot after his Dec. 13, 2013, arrest: attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, attempted use of an explosive device and attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

He initially denied the allegations, with his attorneys arguing that the government sting operation was tantamount to entrapment. But Loewen changed his plea and admitted to the attempted weapons use count on June 8.

Prosecutors, in exchange, dropped the other counts.

Loewen, a Hawker Beechcraft avionics technician who worked near the airport, converted to Islam in 2008 and sympathized with the Muslim militant group al-Qaida. His job gave him ready access to the airport and tarmac.

Details available in federal court documents lay out how FBI agents learned about Loewen and how the airport attack plan played out. According to his plea agreement, filed in U.S. District Court on June 8, FBI agents began investigating Loewen after he befriended someone on Facebook who routinely posted in support of radical or violent jihad. Loewen’s own “radical” Facebook postings heightened their concerns.

Ultimately, an undercover agent contacted Loewen online, and he “almost immediately … began expressing his desire to engage in violent jihad.”

By August, the agent offered to facilitate a meeting between Loewen and someone who could help him carry out an attack.

Loewen offered the undercover agent a tour of the Wichita airport, saying he was willing to commit violence against the public and would sacrifice his life to do it. He shared that he had downloaded “tens of thousands of pages” of information about jihad, martyrdom operations and ways to implement Sharia law and described himself as “radicalized.”

In September, Loewen sent the undercover agent photos of planes on the tarmac outside a hangar. He told the agent he could have “walked over there, shot both pilots … slapped some C4 (explosives) on both fuel trucks and set them off before anyone even called TSA” – the Transportation Security Administration – and was waiting on a sign from Allah to act.

The next month, Loewen told the agent he was interested in martyrdom to advance al-Qaida’s agenda. He met with a second FBI agent he thought was associated with terrorists and voiced a desire to kill as many people as possible by detonating a vehicle loaded with explosives next to the airport terminal.

Loewen scouted the airport, suggested a time for an attack and shared how many planes would be on the ground. He placed on “X” on a map marking the blast site.

The agents, according to federal court documents, helped Loewen secure what he thought were explosives and assemble a bomb. On the morning of the planned attack, one of the agents picked Loewen up at a Wichita hotel and took him to where the bomb was stored.

Loewen finished wiring it, thinking it was operational, then drove to the airport. He was arrested after he twice tried to unlock a security gate leading onto the tarmac.

Attorneys, in Loewen’s plea agreement, proposed a 20-year prison sentence followed by lifetime supervision after his release.

Belot has said he likely would go along with the plea agreement, but if he doesn’t, he would give Loewen a chance to withdraw the guilty plea.

Loewen remains in Sedgwick County Jail without bond.

This story was originally published August 30, 2015 at 9:12 PM with the headline "Man who pleaded guilty in Wichita airport bombing attempt to be sentenced."