The jail term for Rana will be followed by five years of supervised release.

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Although Rana, a boyhood friend of LeT operative David Coleman Headley, was acquitted of supporting the Mumbai attacks, prosecutors had sought the maximum 30-year sentence for his role in the aborted plot to attack Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten for publishing cartoons of Prophet Muhammad.

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Rana's lawyers, downplaying his role in the Danish scheme, sought a lighter sentence of no more than nine years, citing his poor health.

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