Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who has weathered volleys of attacks against her for her unconventional and blunt stances on national and international issues, is urging the judge to show compassion for the man who has confessed to threatening to kill the lawmaker.
Omar, a Somali-American politician who came to the United States after fleeing the war zone, has written a letter addressed to Judge Frank Geraci, who will pronounce a judgement in the case.
In the letter, Omar pleads that the accused be given a chance to improve instead of handing down him a long jail term.
The man, Patrick Carlineo, had threatened to kill the Minnesota Congresswoman, calling her a terrorist in March this year. He faces a lengthy prison term and heavy fine if convicted.
“Why are you working for her, she’s a (expletive) terrorist. Somebody ought to put a bullet in her skull. Back in the day, our forefathers would have put a bullet in her (expletive),” Carlineo had said in a call made to the legislator’s staffer.
Sharing my full letter on the the sentencing of Patrick W. Carlineo, a man convicted of threatening my life.
We must apply a system of compassion to criminal justice.
Who are we as a nation if we respond to threats of political retribution with retribution ourselves? https://t.co/O6ooPx5aL6 pic.twitter.com/RUik17VfnZ
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) November 19, 2019
In the letter, the Democratic Congresswoman shared on the Twitter, Omar says she is aware instances of political violence.
“As someone who fled a war zone, I know how destabilizing acts of political violence can be. That his threat of violence relied on hateful stereotypes about my faith only made it more dangerous … It was a threat against an entire religion, at a time of rising hate crime against religious minorities in our country,” one of the two American Muslim members in the House of Representatives, said.
“We must ask: who are we as a nation if we respond to acts of political retribution with retribution ourselves? The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion,” she wrote.
“Punishing the defendant with a lengthy prison sentence or a burdensome financial fine would not rehabilitate him. It would not repair the harm he has caused. It would only increase his anger and resentment,” Omar notes in the letter.
“I ask you to show compassion in your sentencing,” Omar writes in the letter.
Echoing Nelson Mandela’s words, Omar writes “People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate they can be taught to love.”
