A correctional facility where really bad prison inmates are sent.

Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado, (ADX) is one of the most secure prisons in the world. The prison houses the prisoners who are deemed the most dangerous and in need of the tightest control of all the prisoners in the United States federal prison system. It houses 490 male inmates, (many of them being former terrorists) and each one of them is assigned to one of six levels of security.

However, the majority of inmates have been sent there because they have an extensive history of committing violent crimes against corrections officers and inmates in other prisons, up to and including murder or have escaped from other prisons. About 22% of the inmates have killed fellow prisoners in other correctional facilities and 35% have attempted to attack other prisoners or officers.

The prison is the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Whereas Alcatraz was isolated on an island in the San Francisco Bay, most of the facility of ADX is underground. The prison as a whole contains a multitude of motion detectors and cameras, and 1,400 remote-controlled steel doors. 12 ft (3.7 metres) tall razor wire fences surround the perimeter. Laser beams, pressure pads, and attack dogs alert staff of any activity between the perimeter fences and the prison walls.

Each 8-by-12-foot cell behind a steel door and barred grate has a four-inch wide window that is four feet in height in which they can only see the sky, a desk, a stool, and a bed, which are almost entirely made out of poured concrete, (the concrete bed is covered by a thin mattress) as well as a toilet that shuts off if blocked, a shower that runs on a timer to prevent flooding, and a sink lacking a potentially dangerous trap. Rooms may also be fitted with polished steel mirrors bolted to the wall, an electric light, a radio, and a black and white television that shows recreational, educational, and religious programming. They are placed out of the inmate's reach and remotely controlled. Books, radio and television are considered privileges that may be taken away as punishment.

The cells are sealed off with two steel doors, the one at the cell is barred, and the other one is made of solid steel. This steel and cement cage prohibits any communication between prisoners. Even contact with prison officials is limited. The inmates there are sealed off for 23 hours a day in cells. The inmates may receive an hour’s exercise each day in a tiny yard, alone, if they behave. They then can be let out for longer periods depending on their conduct. They have no means in which to communicate with other inmates. Any form of telecommunication with the outside world is forbidden and food is hand-delivered through holes in the doors by correction officers. The inmates’ only direct human interaction is with correctional officers. Cell walls, plumbing, are soundproofed to prevent communication between the inmates. Prisoners are under constant surveillance, usually with closed-circuit television cameras. There is always a light on although at night, the light is dimmed.

This prison was designed to minimize contact between prisoners and staff. This is reported to have been highly effective in controlling violent and predatory behaviour, escapes, drug-taking, and the influence of members of criminal gangs and notorious prisoners transferred to the ADX.

Part of the prison is a ‘step-down’ program, designed to encourage less anti-social behaviour and eventually transfer prisoners not serving imprisonment as terrorists, out of ADX and back to the Maximum Security population. The program is three years in length, each year allowing more freedom and social contact with other inmates. Any violation during the program means participants revert to year one.

Some people claim that the living conditions in such facilities violate the United States Constitution, specifically, the Eighth Amendment's proscription against "cruel and unusual" punishments. In 1996, a United Nations team assigned to investigate torture described such ‘Special Handing Units’ (SHU) conditions as inhuman and degrading.

A New York Bar association comprehensive study suggests that supermax prisons constitute torture under international law and cruel and unusual punishment under the U.S. constitution. Admittedly, the psychological effects of isolation has an extremely detrimental effect on the human mind. The American Journal of Psychiatry reported that hallucinations, anxiety attacks, problems with impulse control, and self-mutilation can result from solitary confinement.

For example, some of the inmates in ADX managed to commit suicide in their cells. Even the U.S. Congress admitted in 1985 and 1990 they were concerned about the amount of time prisoners were spending in their solitary confinement in their cells. When I was invited to visit the prisons in California in 1972, I was introduced to a prisoner who was in solitary confinement and had spent eight years in solitary confinement when I spoke with him. He didn’t appear to be suffering but that doesn’t mean that such prisoners don’t suffer while in isolation.

Haney, the Santa Cruz psychologist who has testified as an expert witness in cases involving supermax confinement, said the effect of isolation in places like Florence is dramatic. He said, “Prisoners become extremely depressed and lethargic; sleeping, lying on their bunks, staring at the ceiling, declining to go out and exercise. They begin to lose their memories, can't concentrate and they suffer severe panic attacks or become uncontrollably enraged over insignificant things.”

There is no doubt in my mind that SHU’s in various countries (Canada has several) that fit the descriptions given to them with respect to being inhumane exist but quite frankly, (and I think I speak for most citizens) who gives a damn? The people sent to some of these facilities are extremely dangerous people and they should not be permitted to mingle with one another while in such facilities. Further, since they cannot and should not be permitted to mingle with other prisoners, or for that matter, even talk with them, then solitary confinement is the only option given to the prison administration. If they behave, they can listen to the radio and watch TV so their minds will not suffer from total boredom.

And now, I will give you the names of some of the prisoners in the Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado and why they are there so that you can appreciate why these prisoners are isolated from one another and why their regimen is so extremely strict.

Ramzi Yousef , Mahmud Abouhalima. Mohammed Salameh, Eyad Ismoil, and Nidal Ayyad. They are all currently serving life sentences at ADX. They were Al-Qaeda operatives; convicted in 1994 of terrorism conspiracy and other charges in connection with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which killed six people and injured over 1000. Yousef was also convicted of terrorism conspiracy in 1996 for planning Project Bojinka, a foiled plot conceived by senior Al-Qaeda member Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to bomb twelve planes over the Pacific Ocean in a 48-hour period.

Juan Abrego is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was convicted in 1996 of operating the Gulf Cartel, a criminal enterprise that smuggled thousands of tons of cocaine and marijuana into the United States from Mexico over a 16-year period.

H. Rap Brown is currently serving a life sentence at ADX under his actual name, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. Sentenced to life in state prison for the 2000 murder of Deputy Sheriff Ricky Kinchen in Fulton County, Georgia, but he is currently held at ADX because he is a high-profile inmate.

Vincent Basciano is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was previously the Acting Boss of the Bonanno Crime Family in 2004 after Boss Joseph Massino was arrested; convicted in 2006 of murder, murder conspiracy, and racketeering charges. Basciano was convicted in 2011 of ordering the 2004 murder of Bonanno associate Randolph Pizzolo.

Tyler Bingham and Barry Mills are currently serving life sentences at ADX. Aryan Brotherhood prison gang founders; they were transferred to ADX in 2006 after being connected to violent gang activities in prison; convicted of murder, murder conspiracy, and racketeering for ordering the killing of two African-American inmates at the United States Penitentiary, Lewisburg.

Anthony Casso is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. Former Underboss of the Lucchese Crime Family; apprehended in 1993 after 30 months on the lam and placed in the Federal Witness Protection Program; later dropped from the program due to multiple prison violations; subsequently pleaded guilty to murder, murder conspiracy and racketeering.

Seifullah Chapman is currently serving a 65-year sentence at ADX and he is scheduled for release in 2060 if he lives that long. He was associated with the Virginia jihad network; Chapman is a former US Marine convicted of providing material support to the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba by conducting military training for its members.

Dritan Duka is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was involved in the 2007 Fort Dix attack plot; convicted of conspiring to kill American soldiers and possessing firearms with the intent to conduct a terrorist attack at the New Jersey military base. Four accomplices are serving sentences in other federal facilities.

Iyman Faris is currently serving a 20-year sentence at ADX; he is scheduled for release in 2020. Al-Qaeda operative; he pleaded guilty in 2003 to terrorism conspiracy and providing material support to Al-Qaeda by researching potential targets, including the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, and obtaining equipment to be used in attacks at the behest of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Luis Felipe is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was the leader of the Latin Kings gang; and he was convicted in 1996 of multiple counts of murder and murder conspiracy for ordering the murders of rivals from state prison in New York and racketeering for running a criminal enterprise whose members engage in acts of violence, armed robbery, and narcotics trafficking. He is also known as ‘King Blood.’

Jeff Fort is currently serving an 80-year sentence at ADX and he is scheduled for release in 2038. Founder of the El-Rukn (Black P. Stones) gang in Chicago; convicted of drug trafficking charges in 1983; he continued leading the gang from a minimum security federal prison; convicted of terrorism conspiracy in 1987 for agreeing to commit terrorist attacks inside the United States in exchange for weapons and $2.5 million from Libya.

Mohamed Al-Owhali, Wadih el-Hage, Khalfan Mohamed, Mohammed Odeh, and Ahmed Ghailani are all currently serving life sentences at ADX. They were Al-Qaeda operatives; convicted in connection with the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa, which were conceived by the late Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden; the bombings killed 224 people and injured over 4000.

Matthew Hale is currently serving a 40-year sentence at ADX; he is scheduled for release in 2037. Founder of the World Church of the Creator, once one of the largest neo-nazi groups in the United States; he was convicted in 2004 of soliciting the murder of Federal Judge Joan Lefkow in retaliation for ruling against him in a copyright lawsuit brought by a mainstream church with the same name.

Robert Hanssen is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was a former senior FBI agent assigned to counterintelligence. He pleaded guilty in 2002 to espionage for passing classified information to the Soviet Union and later to Russia over a 20-year period. He perpetrated what is known as the worst intelligence disaster in United States history.

Larry Hoover is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was the leader of the Gangster Disciples in Chicago and was sentenced to life in state prison in 1973 for murder. He was also convicted in 1997 of drug conspiracy, extortion, money laundering, and running a continuing criminal enterprise for leading the gang from state prison.

Mohammed Jabarah is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He is a Canadian citizen convicted of terrorism-related offenses in Canada. He was turned over to U.S. authorities after agreeing to assist them with terror investigations, but was sentenced to life in federal prison in 2003 as a result of violating the terms of his release.

Theodore Kaczynski is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. Known as the Unabomber; pleaded guilty in 1998 to building, transporting, and mailing explosives to carry out 16 bombings from 1978 to 1995 in a mail bombing campaign aimed at destroying modern technology, which killed three people and injured 23 others.

Howard Mason is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was convicted in 1989 of racketeering charges in connection with his leadership of The Bebos, a violent drug gang in Queens, NY. He also ordered the 1988 murder of New York City Police Officer Edward Byrne.

Richard McNair is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. Convicted of a state murder charge; held at ADX due to multiple prison escapes; escaped from a county jail in North Dakota by using lip balm to slip out of handcuffs in 1987; escaped from the North Dakota State Penitentiary by crawling through a ventilator duct in 1992; escaped from the United States Penitentiary, Pollock in Louisiana by hiding under bags of mail in 2006.

Zacarias Moussaoui is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was an Al-Qaeda senior member and pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy charges in 2005 for playing a key role in planning the September 11 attacks by assisting the hijackers obtain flight lessons, money, and materials used during the attacks.

Terry Nichols is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was convicted of assisting in carrying out the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which killed 168 people. Co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh who drove the truck loaded with the explosives to the building was executed in the federal prison in Indiana in 2001.

Jose Padilla is currently serving a 17-year sentence at ADX; awaiting re-sentencing after a federal Appeals Court ruled that his original sentence was too lenient He is one of the first American citizens to be designated as an enemy combatant after the September 11th attacks. He was convicted in 2007 of terrorism conspiracy for traveling overseas to attend an Al-Qaeda training camp in order to murder, kidnap, and maim citizens of a foreign country.

Uzair Paracha is currently serving a 30-year sentence at ADX and is scheduled for release in 2029. Convicted of providing material and financial support to Al-Qaeda member Majid Khan, who was planning terrorist bombings in Maryland. Khan is currently being held at the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.

Simón Trinidad is currently serving a 60-year sentence at ADX under the name Juvenal Ovidio Palmera Pineda; scheduled for release in 2056. Member of the Colombian Armed Revolutionary Force (FARC), a Marxist group which advocates the violent overthrow of the Colombian government. He was convicted in 2007 of terrorism conspiracy for acting as a FARC negotiator in connection with the 2003 kidnapping of three American military contractors who were working with the Colombian government.

O.G. Mack is currently serving a 50-year sentence at ADX under his actual name, Omar Portee and is scheduled for release in 2044. he was the founder of the United Blood Nation gang and he was convicted in 2002 of racketeering and murder conspiracy, as well as narcotics and weapons charges.

Richard Reid is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was an Al-Qaeda operative and he pleaded guilty in 2002 to attempting the use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder in connection with his 2001 attempt to detonate explosive devices hidden in his shoes on a plane traveling from Miami to Paris. He is known as the Shoe Bomber.

Ahmed Ressam is currently serving a 22-year sentence at ADX and he is awaiting re-sentencing after a federal Appeals Court ruled that his original sentence was too lenient. He is the Al-Qaeda operative I wrote about in the previous two articles in my blog.

Eric Rudolph is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. he was a member of the violent extremist group Army of God and he pleaded guilty in 2005 to carrying out four bombings from 1996 to 1998 which killed two people and injured over 120, including the Centennial Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta and the bombing of an abortion clinic in Alabama, causing the death of Birmingham Police Officer, Robert Sanderson.

Mamdouh Salim is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. he was an Al-Qaeda leader who was arrested for involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Africa. He pleaded guilty to stabbing Correction Officer Louis Pepe at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City in 2000.

Faisal Shahzad is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was an Al-Qaeda supporter and he pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and other charges in connection with the 2010 Times Square car bombing attempt. He received explosives training in 2009 from the terrorist organization Tehrik-i-Taliban in Pakistan.

Thomas Silverstein is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang leader and he was transferred to ADX after murdering Correction Officer Merle Clutts at the United States Penitentiary in Marion, now a medium security facility in Illinois, in 1983 while serving a sentence for bank robbery.

Michael Swango is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. Physician and serial killer, he pleaded guilty in 2000 to fatally poisoning three patients in New York and one in Ohio and he has been linked to scores of other deaths.

Dwight York is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was the founder of the black separatist cult Nuwaubian Nation of Moors and he made millions of dollars from the forced labor of cult members. He was convicted in 2004 on multiple counts of racketeering and child molestation for having sex with underage members and he is known by supporters as Dr. Malachi York.

Scott Fountain is currently serving a 60-year sentence at ADX; scheduled for release in 2044. He was an Aryan Brotherhood prison gang member and was convicted of the 1984 murder of Correction Officer Boyd Spikerman at the Federal Correctional Institution, which is a medium security facility in Wisconsin.

Fares Khallafalla is currently serving a 30-year sentence at ADX and is scheduled for release in 2019. A follower of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, he was convicted in 1995 of seditious conspiracy and terrorism conspiracy for planning to bomb high-profile targets in New York City as part of the foiled New York City landmark bomb plot. Several of his accomplices are serving sentences in other federal facilities.

Gazi Mezer is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was a member of the terrorist organization, Hamas and was convicted in 1998 of terrorism conspiracy for constructing pipe bombs he planned to use in a suicide attack in a New York City subway station.

Ahmed Sattar is currently serving a 24-year sentence at ADX and is scheduled for release in 2023. He was the co-defendant of disbarred attorney Lynne Stewart; convicted of assisting Stewart pass messages from her client, Omar Abdel Rahman, to the terrorist organization he heads, al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya, in violation of Special Administrative Measures prohibiting it. Stewart is serving her 10-year sentence at the Federal Medical Center, and Carswell is serving his sentence in Texas.

Raul Leon is currently serving a life sentence at ADX. He was the leader of the Mexican Mafia gang, which engages in murder, drug trafficking, robbery and money laundering. He was transferred to ADX after pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges in 2007 for running the gang from Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum security facility in California, where he was serving a life sentence on a state murder charge.

Joseph Hernandez, Tex Hernandez, James Morado, Gerald Rubalcaba, and Cornelio Tristan are all currently serving life sentences at ADX. They were leaders of the Nuestra Familia gang, which was a part of the Norteños network of gangs, which engage in drug trafficking, extortion and murder inside and outside of prisons in California They were arrested by federal authorities as part of Operation Black Widow in 2001 and they all pleaded guilty to federal racketeering charges in 2004 for continuing to direct gang activities while serving sentences at Pelican Bay State Prison, a maximum security facility in California.

There are other prisoners in that prison facility but what I have given you in this article gives you some idea of the kind of prisoners that are incarcerated in that facility.

Why do I recommend the death penalty for terrorists?

In 1985 when I was in Milan, Italy attending a U.N. crime conference and was invited to address the delegates from the podium about my views on terrorism, I had in mind what had happened at the Lod Airport massacre which was a terrorist attack that occurred on May 30, 1972. Three members of the Japanese Red Army killed 26 people and injured 80 others with machine gun fire and hand grenades.

Only one of the terrorists had survived the battle with the armed Israelis soldiers. His name was Kozo Okamoto. He and the others were members of the terroristic Japanese Red Army. He was shot by security personnel and arrested as he attempted to leave the terminal. He was tried and sentenced to life in prison since Israel doesn’t have the death penalty except for Nazi war criminals.

Now as we all know, terrorists who kill people in Israel never spend the rest of their lives in prison because Israel uses them as pawns to get Israelis soldiers freed from terrorist’ s hands. And sure to form, this is what happened in Okamoto’s case. He was released in 1985 with over a thousand other prisoners in an exchange for several captured Israeli soldiers. After his release, he settled in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. He was later arrested in 1997, but in 2000 he was granted political refugee status in Lebanon. Kozo Okamoto is still wanted by the Japanese government. It has been requested that he be extradited to Japan but the Lebanese authorities have refused to accede to Japan’s request because they think of Okamoto as a hero who fought against the Israelis.

Hijacker Abd al-Hadi Ghanayem, who survived with a few cuts and bruises had jus previously hijacked a bus in Israel and drove it into a ravine, killing 16 and injuring 27 passengers. He too was sentenced to prison for life. However, several years later, he was one of the 1,000 prisoners that were released after the first release of prisoners in exchange for Israeli Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit who has been held captive in Gaza for five years.

In the United States, Mohammed Junaid Babar admitted to helping set up a terror training camp for al-Qaida terrorists in Pakistan. He said he also sent needed supplies to terror leaders in Pakistan. Officials said that several of the terrorists he helped train later went on to help in the plot to bomb the subways in London where a number of people were killed. Babar also admitted he talked with al-Qaida leaders about bombing the French embassy, an English library and other targets in Pakistan. However, like Ressam, he cooperated with the U.S. authorities and just like what happened when Ressam appeared before his judge; Babar was given a reduced sentence of just four years in prison instead of the 70 years he was supposed to get.

Now one would think that he would be grateful for his second chance in life and be reformed. The al-Qaida terrorist who was set free onto the streets of New York said he still supports killing Americans overseas, including civilians. I don’t know where he is now but I am convinced that if he gets out of the United States and moves to the Middle East, you can be sure that he will be killing American soldiers and innocent civilians somewhere in that part of the world.

Had those two terrorists in Israel who killed innocent people been executed, justice would have been reached for the victims and their families but as I said earlier, Israel doesn’t execute people. If they committed their terrorist crimes in the United States, they would be sentenced to death or alternatively to prison for the rest of their lives and as we all know, the United States government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists so these two men would still be in prison serving their natural lives sentence if they wern’t executed. If Babar was sentenced to prison for life, we wouldn’t be hearing his bragging about murdering American soldiers and civilians.

The purpose of sentences of natural life in prison

There are six purposes which I will now explain. They are; Retribution, Deterrence, Denunciation, Incapacitation, Rehabilitation and Reparation.

Retribution

There are two distinct types of retributive justice. The classical definition embraces the idea that the amount of punishment must be proportionate to the amount of harm caused by the offence. Other alternatives to retributive measures include psychiatric imprisonment, restorative justice and transformative justice.

For example, it is conceivable that the American Staff Sergeant who murdered sixteen Afghanistan women and children may be found not guilty by reason of insanity since he suffered from a brain injury prior to the slaughter of those victims. If he is sent to a psychiatric hospital for treatment and later set free because the doctors feel that he is cured of his mental illness, once he is free, it can no longer said that he is serving a time of retributive justice. However, if it is determined that he was sane when he killed those people, he will either be sent to prison for natural life or alternatively, hanged. Both such sentences are retributive sentences.

Restorative justice is an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of victims, offenders, as well as the involved community, instead of punishing the offender. Victims take an active role in the process, while offenders are encouraged to take responsibility for their actions, to repair the harm they've done—by apologizing, returning stolen money, or community service. Restorative justice involves both victim and offender and focuses on their personal needs. In addition, it provides help for the offender in order to avoid future offences.

I don’t see how restorative justice should apply to terrorists. What can and should for the most part apply to terrorists is as follows:

Incapacitation refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing (rather than merely deterring) future offences by the convicted criminal. It is also thought of as the protection of society from the criminal.

Imprisonment incapacitates the prisoners by physically removing them from the society against which they are deemed to have offended. Long term imprisonment with the intention to incapacitate is often used by criminal justice systems against habitual criminals who recidivate and criminals who clearly are a danger to society in general. Many believe that this is the prime purpose of sentencing when it comes to the sentencing of dangerous criminals.

Deterrence is the use of punishment as a threat to deter people from offending.

Specific deterrence focuses on the individual in question. The aim of these punishments is to discourage the criminal from future criminal acts by instilling an understanding of the consequences. General deterrence focuses on general prevention of crime by making examples of specific deviants. The individual actor is not the focus of the attempt at behavioral change, but rather receives punishment in public view in order to deter other individuals from deviance in the future.

Denunciation refers to the disapproval of an act by society that is expressed by the imposition of a sentence. This can be considered as one of the purposes of sentencing, as well as being a possible justification for the imposition of a sentence. Some crimes are so horrendous and the need to punish the offender is so strong, the increased length of the sentence is a form of denunciation.

What should not be applicable to terrorists who plan to kill people, who take further steps to make this happen and who maim or kill their victims is rehabilitation.

Rehabilitation means; to restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or to restore to good condition, operation, or capacity.

The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not permanently criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. A goal of rehabilitation is to prevent habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, rehabilitation would seek, by means of education or therapy, to bring a criminal into a more normal state of mind, or into an attitude which would be helpful to society, rather than be harmful to society.

Quite frankly, I really don’t see the benefit of arguing that terrorists who have murdered innocent people should be given the opportunity to be rehabilitated. For example, when the Nazi commandant of Auschwitz extermination camp was convicted of supervising the murder of at least a million Jews, just before his execution, he admitted that what he had done was wrong. One could say that he was rehabilitated but that didn’t mean that he should be set free. Despite his rehabilitation, he was still hanged.

Twenty-four-year-old Mohamed Merah who murdered three children and a teacher outside a school in France and who also murdered four French soldiers was a terrorist who was beyond rehabilitation. He had previously boasted that he was an Islamic warrior who was on a mission to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and was opposed to France’s law banning Islamic facial veils. The director of the prison in Kandahar told Reuters that Merah had been arrested and sentenced to imprisonment in 2007 for bomb making. The sentence of death would have been be an appropriate sentence in his case however that became academic when he escaped the prison during a massive Taliban prison break six months later. Had he been executed in Afghanistan as a convicted bomb maker, those lives he ended in France would never have come about. He was however killed during an attack on his home in France after he had fired upon the police who were at his home to arrest him.

The way I see it, terrorists who plan, participate in making bombs or other activities that will bring about death to human beings and/or committing acts of violence that brings about the deaths of human beings should either be executed or alternatively, sentenced to prison for the rest of their natural lives. Sentencing them to anything less, is surely a mockery of justice.