Najibullah Zazi, the Afghan immigrant who was a key player in what the federal authorities have said was one of the most serious threats to the United States since the 9/11 attacks, pleaded guilty on Monday to terrorism charges after admitting to a plot to blow up the subways.He admitted that he came to New York around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks to kill himself and others on the subway, to draw attention to the killing of Afghan civilians by the United States military.
Mr. Zazi appeared before Judge Raymond J. Dearie at Federal District Court in Brooklyn. He pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder overseas, and providing material support for a terrorist organization. He faces a sentence of life in prison.
Two people with knowledge of the case said that in recent weeks, Mr. Zazi had begun providing information to prosecutors as part of the initial stages of an agreement that led up to his guilty plea Monday.
Such an arrangement suggests that prosecutors believe Mr. Zazi can provide valuable information, including evidence about the plot and the involvement of others, including those who may be overseas, and other intelligence on Al Qaeda.
Spokesmen for the F.B.I. and the office of the United States attorney in Brooklyn, Benton J. Campbell, declined to comment.
Throughout the 45-minute proceeding on Monday, Mr. Zazi seemed unaffected by his circumstances, even smiling on several occasions. And when he spoke, he did so in an unapologetic, matter-of-fact manner.
"I would sacrifice myself to bring attention to what the United States military was doing to civilians in Afghanistan," he said to the judge.
Mr. Zazi, who was born in Afghanistan and was raised in Pakistan and later in Flushing, Queens, where he attended high school, was working as an airport shuttle driver in Denver when he was arrested in September 2009.
The federal authorities said he had received weapons and explosives training at a Qaeda camp in Pakistan, bought beauty products that contained the raw materials to build a bomb and traveled to Queens with bomb-making instructions in his laptop on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
A number of other people have been arrested in the case, including his father, his uncle and two of his classmates at Flushing High School. Those actions, including the filing of more serious charges against his father earlier this month, may have in some way influenced the decision to plead guilty, another lawyer suggested.
"I am aware that he is under intense pressure because of what's happening," the lawyer said.
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Zazi had driven a rented car from Denver to New York, arriving Sept. 10, 2009, the day before the eighth anniversary of the 2001 attacks. Searches of Zazi's car after he arrived turned up bomb-making plans on a laptop computer, but no actual devices or materials.
One of the people familiar with the Zazi case told the Associated Press that Zazi decided to offer the information after being warned that his mother could face criminal immigration charges.
Zazi's father was charged this month with trying to get rid of chemicals and other evidence. But it appears he was cut a break: After initially demanding that he be jailed in Brooklyn without bail, prosecutors agreed to a deal on Feb. 17 releasing him on $50,000 bond and allowing him to return to his home in suburban Denver.
By contrast, bond for a Queens imam charged with lying to the FBI about phone contact with Zazi when Zazi was in New York was set at $1.5 million. A friend of Zazi, New York cab driver Zarein Ahemdzay, was jailed without bail on a similar lying charge.
Another one of the people said that Zazi told prosecutors that he made roughly two pounds of a powerful and highly unstable explosive called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP. The same explosive was used by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid in 2001 and the terrorists who carried out the London bombings in 2005 that killed 52 people.
In those instances, TATP was not the main charge; it was the detonator. The 1.5 grams in Reid's shoe was supposed to help detonate the plastic explosives aboard a jetliner, and it was used to set off a mixture of black pepper and hydrogen peroxide in London.
Experts have said the TATP in the Zazi case was probably going to be just the detonator.
Authorities say Ahmedzay and another New Yorker charged in the case, Adis Medunjanin, traveled to Pakistan with Zazi in 2008. Medunjanin has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and remains jailed. The three men, former high school classmates in Queens, are scheduled to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Feb. 25.
Officials earlier confirmed reports week that Zazi's uncle had been arraigned on a felony count in secret — a sign that he also could be cooperating.
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Zazi said in court he went to Pakistan in 2008 to join the Taliban and fight against the U.S. military but was recruited by the terrorist network and went into a training camp in Warziristan, a region of Pakistan where al-Qaida is known to operate. Zazi said he received weapons training at the camp and later learned about explosives.
Zazi also said in court that he had been in contact with an al-Qaida leader while in Pakistan but did not identify the person. "We were recruited by al-Qaida ... to go the United States in a martyrdom plan," he said.
He said the terrorism plot was aimed at the city subway system but did not name a specific target.
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US Attorney General Eric Holder, describing the plot as one of the most "serious" terrorist threats since September 11, 2001, hailed the guilty plea as evidence that the civilian court system was an appropriate forum to prosecute suspected terrorists.
At a press conference after the plea was announced, he criticized those who "denigrate" the civilian justice system because they oppose a plan to try the alleged 9/11 plotters attack before US courts.
"In this case as it has been in so many other ones, the criminal justice system has proved to be an invaluable weapon for incapacitating plots and obtaining intelligence," he said. "To denigrate the use of this tool flies in the face of the facts, flies in the face of the history of this tool, it's more about politics."
He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison for the first two charges and 15 years for the third. However, his plea appears to be part of a bargain in which he could receive more lenient punishment in return for cooperating with investigators.
Sentencing was scheduled for June 25.
Zazi was intending to set off bombs either on September 14, 15 or 16, 2009, the Department of Justice says. But he left after receiving a tip-off that he was being watched by federal agents.
He admitted in court Monday that "I also took trips to New York city to plan" the attacks. However, he said that instead of carrying out the plot, "we threw away the explosive material."