A federal jury found a Bosnian-born US citizen guilty today of planning a co-ordinated suicide bomb attack on New York City subways in 2009 at the behest of senior al Qaeda operatives.
Adis Medunjanin (28), faces a maximum sentence of life in prison following his conviction on all nine charges, including conspiring to carry out a suicide attack on American soil, receiving military training from al Qaeda and plotting to kill US soldiers fighting in Afghanistan.
Medunjanin's accused co-conspirator Najibullah Zazi was arrested in September 2009, just days before Medunjanin and a third member of the plot, Zarein Ahmedzay, were prepared to carry out what US Attorney General Eric Holder has called "one of the most serious terrorist threats" to the United States since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
As the verdict was read in US District Court in Brooklyn, Medunjanin looked over several times at his mother and sister, both of whom had testified on his behalf during the trial, and raised his hand in a reassuring gesture. Afterward his stoic mother and sobbing sister, who is a 30-year-old nurse, left the courtroom and declined to speak to the press.
Outside the court, Medunjanin's attorney, Robert Gottlieb, indicated that he planned to appeal the verdict, citing "some serious legal issues" that he wanted to address.He also said even though his client was convicted of all charges, the case spotlighted the importance of trying a case before a jury rather than in a military tribunal, like the ongoing case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, accused mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
Medunjanin, a US citizen born in Bosnia and a resident of the New York borough of Queens, was accused as the third member of a plot to bomb the subways in 2009. His high school friends Ahmedzay and Zazi, both 27, both pleaded guilty to planning the attacks with him and are cooperating with the government, awaiting sentencing.
Reuters