In one of the most horrific attacks on the city’s transit system ever, the man who detonated smoke bombs on a packed New York subway train before shooting 10 people in April 2022 was given a life sentence on Thursday.

At a hearing in federal court in Brooklyn, U.S. District Court Judge William Kuntz handed down a 10-life terms plus 10-year sentence to Frank James, 64. In January, James entered a guilty plea to 10 terrorist and weapons-related offences.

“Today, Frank James was sentenced for his deliberate and calculated act of terror against our city,” James Smith, who heads the FBI’s New York field office, said in a statement.

“He aimed to kill innocent people, who were simply going about their daily lives amid the morning rush.”

The attack followed a string of violent crimes in America’s largest metropolitan transit system, including instances of commuters being pushed onto subway tracks.

James, who was apprehended in Manhattan’s East Village neighborhood 30 hours after the attack on a Manhattan-bound N train, confessed to the crimes before a judge in January.

He opened fire during the morning rush hour as the train headed to an underground station in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood. James shot 10 people and another 13 were injured in the ensuing panic, according to police. No one was killed.

His attorneys had sought an 18-year sentence, according to court documents.

James, a native of the city’s Bronx borough with recent addresses in Philadelphia and Milwaukee, had nine prior arrests in New York and three in New Jersey, according to the New York Police Department.