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| Dad of NYC subway bomb plotter convicted | |||||
| 2011-07-23 | |||||
| NEW YORK: The father of an admitted terrorist was convicted Friday of charges he destroyed evidence and lied to investigators to cover up his son's Al-Qaeda-sanctioned plot to attack the New York City subways in 2009 as one of a trio of suicide bombers. A Brooklyn jury found the father of Najibullah Zazi guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice at a trial detailing the disintegration of a working-class family of Afghan-Americans amid chilling allegations of homegrown terror. Mohammed Wali Zazi had no visible reaction when the verdict was read.
Leaving court, the 55-year-old former cab driver from Colorado told reporters he was innocent. "There are so many things that didn't come out in court," Zazi, who remains free on bail, said without elaborating.
"We will keep fighting for Mr. Zazi, and we will not give up," she said. Said US Attorney Loretta Lynch: "This defendant sought to conceal one of the most violent terror plots in recent times. His actions, had they not been thwarted, would have left Americans at grave risk." The case featured the testimony of two other family members who pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government to stave off stiff prison terms. They detailed the family's failure to acknowledge Najibullah Zazi as a budding terrorist and its clumsy attempts to protect him once his plot fell apart.
Colson argued that cooperating family members "falsely accused our client, Mr. Zazi, just to save themselves." At trial, a cousin of Najibullah Zazi told jurors that while living in Pakistan he had introduced Zazi to a cleric there who arranged for Zazi and two childhood friends from the New York City borough of Queens to get explosives and other instruction at an Al-Qaeda outpost. Zazi admitted in a guilty plea last year that he returned from Pakistan to his family's Denver-area home to practice cooking up homemade bombs using chemicals extracted from beauty supplies. He then drove to New York City in September 2009 with plans to attack the subway system in a "martyrdom operation" before he learned he was being watched by the FBI and fled back to Colorado. The defendant's nephew and brother-in-law both testified how the FBI and immigration agents put the squeeze on the Zazi clan as soon as the plot unraveled. When it became clear Najibullah Zazi was a suspect and family members were getting grand jury subpoenas, the cousin said "Uncle Wali" recruited him to get rid of plastic containers of peroxide and other evidence. The family agreed to code name the chemicals "medicine" in case the FBI was eavesdropping, he said. He also claimed his uncle admonished the family, "If anybody asks questions, tell them we don't know nothing."
The elder Zazi's lawyers argued recorded phone calls showed the brother-in-law had a vendetta against their client because he believed the terror case had ruined his life.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #1 He also claimed his uncle admonished the family, "If anybody asks questions, tell them we don't know nothing." If you "don't know nothing" that means you know something. Mohammed Wali Zazi. Hoisted on the petard of the double negative... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2011-07-23 15:15 |