Islamic Militants Given Life Terms in N.Y. Bombing : Terrorism: Judge says the four ‘violated the laws not only of man, but God’ in killing six at World Trade Center. Group sought to punish U.S. for backing Israel.

Shouting their defiance, four Islamic militants were sentenced Tuesday to spend the rest of their lives in prison without parole for last year’s bombing of the World Trade Center.

In imposing the maximum possible punishment for what the government has termed “the worst act of terrorism in U.S. history,” U.S. District Judge Kevin T. Duffy called the defendants sneaks and cowards.

“What you sought to do in the name of Islam . . . “ he admonished them, “violated the laws not only of man, but God.” Each was sentenced to serve 240 years.

The noontime explosion on Feb. 26, 1993, killed six people, injured more than 1,000 and filled the 110-story twin towers with smoke and flames. It also shattered America’s sense of post-Cold War invulnerability and the belief that terrorism is an overseas phenomenon.

Evidence presented during the trial showed that the defendants had sought to punish Americans for their support of Israel by targeting one of the nation’s best-known landmarks.

“There has been no remorse shown, merely arrogance and nothing else,” Duffy said as he sentenced the principal defendant, Mohammed A. Salameh, 26, who rented the van that carried the 1,200-pound bomb into the trade center’s underground garage. “Somehow, you have a sense of achievement. Perhaps you feel you are a martyr.”

Federal authorities broke the case last year after tracing the rented van to Salameh through an identification number found on a piece of debris.

“You chose a site to kill the greatest number of people possible,” the judge told Salameh. If the bomb had been placed at the base of the trade center’s north tower, he said, “as many as 10,000 deaths could have resulted.”

Outside the federal courthouse, where a jury had convicted the defendants on March 4, dozens of New York police stood behind barricades to guard against any violent demonstration or perhaps another bombing attempt. No trouble ensued and by late afternoon some patrol officers were slumped over the wooden barricades as if dozing.

Salameh, like the other defendants, said before sentencing that the months-long jury trial had been infected with bias because of unfair treatment by “the media in the United States and Europe.”

He and his accomplices also objected that, after they fired their court-appointed lawyers two months ago, Duffy prohibited them from retaining famed civil rights lawyer William M. Kunstler to handle their appeals. Duffy ruled against Kunstler on grounds that he already is representing one or two defendants in a related bombing conspiracy trial next fall, involving a militant Egyptian sheik and a dozen others.

Although the government would like Salameh and two other convicted bombers to testify at that trial, Salameh told the court in a booming voice: “The government wants us to testify falsely in the name of cooperation. I will not testify in that other case against anyone.”

Referring to his own case, he said, “I am not going to plead for mercy. I will not beg.”

Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, regarded by Salameh and the others as their spiritual leader, and 12 co-defendants are charged with conspiring not only to bomb the World Trade Center, but also to blow up the U.N. building and the Lincoln and Holland commuter tunnels linking New York City with New Jersey.

Duffy reserved his harshest condemnation for the second defendant, Nidal Ayyad, 26, a chemical engineer who helped finance the bombing and ordered chemicals and hydrogen gas for the homemade explosive device.

“You are clearly the most culpable of the defendants. You had the best breaks,” Duffy told him, referring to his U.S. college education.

The judge said Ayyad had violated the oath he took upon becoming a U.S. citizen “and turned your life into a total lie.”

Ayyad also was convicted of sending an anonymous letter to the New York Times threatening further acts of violence unless the United States cut off all assistance to Israel.

Ayyad responded defiantly to Duffy: “You are only a judge. You can put me in prison for five or 10 lives. But God is more powerful than America.”

When Ayyad complained that “human rights advocates” had not monitored his treatment during months in detention, Duffy interjected: “Did human rights organizations monitor the people whom you killed?”

Ed Smith, a New Yorker who lost his pregnant wife, Monica, in the blast, addressed the court before sentencing to urge harsh punishment for the bombers.

“I lost my wife and I will never get to see my son grow up,” Smith said in a choked voice. “We lost all this because of an act of terrorism against the United States.”

The other two defendants, Mahmud Abouhalima, 34, and Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj, 28, claimed that they were victims of American injustice, repeatedly invoked the name of God and said they would rely on divine law over human law.

Abouhalima, who was pictured as “field general” of the bombing, helped construct the bomb and purchased gas for the delivery van the morning of the crime. Ajaj was convicted of carrying bomb-making manuals into the country several months before the blast.

All four defendants, speaking through an Arabic interpreter, were dressed in loose-fitting brown dungarees issued by the federal penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pa., where they had been held pending sentencing. It was unclear if they would serve their sentences at Lewisburg or at an even higher-security institution at Marion, Ill., where many convicted mobsters and drug traffickers are imprisoned.

None of the defendants testified at the trial.

Duffy said 180 years of each sentence was based on the life expectancies of the six people who died in the explosion.

He also imposed fines of $250,000 on each defendant to be used as restitution to families of the victims. Federal sources said they did not know if the fines ever can be collected.

Mary Jo White, U.S. attorney in Manhattan, said outside court that the sentences “send an unmistakable message that this country will respond decisively to terrorist acts.”