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Terror Suspect Zazi Lands In New York
By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 26, 2009
Modified Sep 26, 2009
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By
Jen Chung
Published Sep 26, 2009
Modified Sep 26, 2009
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Najibullah Zazi, the former Queens (current Denver) resident accused of plotting to bomb New York, was flown from Denver to face charges at Eastern District Court in Brooklyn. Yesterday, assistant U.S. Attorney Tim Neff said there was a "chilling, disturbing sequence of events that suggest the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11 for the purposes of using such an item...The defendant was in the throes of making a bomb and attempting to perfect his formulation." The U.S. Marshals' plane landed in Teterboro, NJ, where the NYPD picked Zazi and flew him by helicopter to Brooklyn, where he was placed in Sunset Park's Metropolitan Detention Center.
According to the Post, Zazi, 24, "will be arraigned Tuesday on a single charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, which carries a life sentence." The NY Times adds, "Court papers filed in the case, arguing that he be held without bail, tracked Mr. Zazi from what a prosecutor said was his explosives training in Pakistan last year and his efforts in recent weeks in a Colorado hotel to cook up the same type of home-brewed explosives used in the 2005 London transit bombings to a trip to Queens in a rental car on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks."
Neff successfully argued that Zazi would be a flight risk (Zazi's lawyer pointed out that he did return to Denver after being tipped off about federal surveillance, versus going anywhere else in the world). He allegedly sought beauty products, like acetone and hydrogen peroxide, to make bombs, and the some investigators think he might have built and detonated a test bomb near Denver. Which is a far cry from the portrait of the smiling coffee vendor in lower Manhattan on Stone Street—the Times offers a profile of Zazi: Apparently feds find him a challenge, "a homegrown operative who travels freely, who is skilled with people, who passed an airport employee background check, who understands the patterns and nuance of American life so well that he gave multiple interviews to journalists for whom access and openness rarely seem like a disguise."
Karen Greenberg of NYU's Center on Law and Security told NY1, "Of the 824 prosecutions we've had go through our federal courts since September 11th, very few of them have combined alleged al-Qaida affiliation, terrorist training in a training camp, and potential use of a weapon of mass destruction. The Zazi case combines all three of these factors."
Tagged
9/11
al-qaeda
Najibullah Zazi
Queens terror
terror
terror plot
Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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