A jury in Brooklyn will begin deliberating Monday in terms of a Bosnian-born U.S. citizen accused in an abortive subway suicide bombing plot in 2009.Â
Federal prosecutors told the jury that Adis Medunjanin was fully committed to a plot with two friends to detonate suicide bombs in crowded Ny subways. They said Medunjanin suggested the attacks be timed during Ramadan, on 9-11, 2009, and that the bombs might be assembled inside the basement of the Manhattan apartment building where he worked.
Medunjanin's defense lawyers, however, said the Bosnian-born immigrant wanted only to defend Muslims when he traveled to Pakistan together with his former highschool classmates, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, meaning to fight American forces in Afghanistan. They ended up instead at an al-Qaida training camp where they were asked to hold out a bombing plot within the Country.
Defense lawyer Robert Gottlieb attacked the credibility of both chief witnesses against Medunjanin, Zazi and Ahmedzay, who pleaded guilty and testified in exchange for possible leniency in sentencing.
Referring to Zazi, who wept at the stand and said he loved Medunjanin, Gottlieb said, "Don't be fooled by the terrorist's tears. They're the tears of somebody who will do anything to avoid wasting himself."
Zazi and Ahmedzay testified that they and Medunjanin, all devout Muslims who had immigrated to the U.S. as children, became radicalized of their early 20s as they listened to Islamist tapes and online lectures urging violent jihad.
William Bratton, a former head of police in La and Ny city, says that could be a common theme in terrorism involving U.S. citizens.
"In relation to the subway bombers, or the aptitude subway bombers, they were homegrown," noted Bratton, "but they were inspired by the external threat, they were inspired by the preachings of al-Qaida.
Zazi and Ahmedzay aborted the plan on September 10 once they realized they were being watched by law enforcement, in line with their testimony. Medunjanin was arrested four months later, after he called an emergency line saying, "We like death greater than you like life," and drove his car into another vehicle on a brand new York expressway. If convicted on all nine counts, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
From WhatNewsToday.net
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