By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN FEDERAL COURT — An alleged top Osama bin Laden deputy who pleaded guilty to stabbing a corrections officer in the eye with a sharpened comb was sentenced to life in prison by a federal judge on Tuesday, overriding a softer punishment imposed in 2004.
The purported Al Qaeda leader, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, 52, was sentenced to 32 years in prison six years ago after pleading guilty to viciously assaulting the officer, Louis Pepe.
Federal prosecutors appealed the sentence, claiming U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts should have imposed a "terrorism enhancement" consideration, which would have resulted in a stricter sentence.
Their appeal was granted in 2008 and the judge was ordered to re-sentence Salim, which she did on Tuesday.
Salim had been awaiting trial for his alleged involvement in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya when he attacked Pepe at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan in 2001.
