A Moroccan national arrested by law enforcement as he was planning to detonate a bomb in the U.S. Capitol building has been sentenced to 30-years in prison by a federal judge

Amine El Khalifi, an illegal immigrant who lived in Alexandria, Virginia, has been sentenced after pleading guilty in June 2012 to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction. The would be Islamic terrorist originally faced a maximum sentence under federal law of life in prison, but prosecutors agreed to the 30-year prison term as part of a plea agreement. The 29-year-old El Khalifi's lawyers asked for a sentence of 25 years, saying that would be enough to deter others from pursuing similar plans, but their request was denied. The wannabe Muslim terrorist believed that he was working with al-Qaeda when in fact his contacts were undercover U.S. agents, the officials stated. The radical Islamist also was in possession of a semi-automatic weapon which he confessed he would have used to shoot people before detonating the bomb inside the U.S. Capitol Building. The illegal alien had been the subject of a lengthy undercover investigation by the FBI. They said that he had become known to them in January 2011 when a confidential source told authorities that El Khalifi met with others in Virginia and agreed with statements that the group needed to be ready for war, according to court documents. "Ironically, this man would have been eligible for Obama's new deportation policy since El Khalifi is under 30-years-old and has no criminal record in the United States until now," said former NYPD detective and military intelligence officer Mike Snopes.