SEATTLE — A former Bellevue man who set fire to a Seattle nightclub just after midnight on New Year’s Eve was sentenced Thursday for arson.
Musab Mohammed Masmari, 30, pleaded guilty in May, admitting that he smuggled 1-gallon tank of gasoline into Neighbours nightclub on Capitol Hill and tried to set the club on fire.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo S. Martinez said Masmari deserved an exceptional sentence of 10 years based on the number of people in the nightclub; the fact that it was New Year’s Eve, the busiest night of the year; and that “it was a few seconds from causing significant injury or death.”
There were more than 700 people in the club on Dec. 31, 2013, when Masmari walked in with the gas can concealed in a shopping bag at about 11:30 a.m. Shortly before midnight, Masmari poured some of the gasoline on a staircase and hid the gas container, which was still more than half-full, behind a planter at the top of the stairs.
Prosecutors said Masmari lit the gas he had poured on the stairs at 12:06 p.m. and then left the club.
He we was identified by a review of surveillance videos and arrested by Seattle police and FBI on Feb. 1, 2014, as he was preparing to go to Sea-Tac Airport to leave the country.
Because of the differences between state and federal law, federal prosecution ensured he received a longer sentence than was available in state court.
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