“The ball bearings do the damage,” he said. “They go like bullets.”
That matter-of-fact description of bomb-making for beginners was offered by Najibullah Zazi on Wednesday during a federal terrorism trial, in which he gave a detailed explanation of the steps he said that he and two other men had taken to carry out suicide attacks on New York subways on the orders of Al Qaeda.
In his second day of testimony, Mr. Zazi continued to explain how he and two former high school classmates from Queens, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin, became radicalized; traveled to Pakistan, where they trained at a terrorist camp; and came within days of acting upon what federal officials have described as one of the most credible terrorist threats against the United States since Sept. 11.
Mr. Zazi even described a video he recorded, which he had expected Al Qaeda to release after the suicide attack.
He and Mr. Ahmedzay have pleaded guilty and are testifying against Mr. Medunjanin in the hope of receiving shorter sentences.
A lawyer for Mr. Medunjanin, Robert C. Gottlieb, has argued that Mr. Medunjanin had a falling out with his friends and withdrew from the plot. Mr. Medunjanin is accused of conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction and to commit murder abroad, of providing material support to Al Qaeda and of receiving military training from Al Qaeda. All three men face life in prison.
In Federal District Court in Brooklyn on Wednesday, Mr. Zazi, who has been described as the leader of the group, testified that after his training at the Qaeda camp, he went to an Internet cafe in Peshawar, Pakistan, where he scanned and e-mailed to himself handwritten notes and drawings about making bombs. He recited the instructions as the people in the courtroom watched silently.
Mr. Medunjanin listened closely to the testimony, taking notes but showing no emotion.
Mr. Zazi said that after returning to the United States, he moved to Colorado, where some of his family was living, and found a job as an airport shuttle-bus driver. He put his bomb-making knowledge to work, and when a test detonator was successful, he called Mr. Ahmedzay to share the news, using code. “I told him I fixed the virus on the computer and it worked,” Mr. Zazi said.
But Mr. Zazi said his efforts were complicated when he realized that he was missing a page of his notes showing the quantities of different ingredients needed to build a large bomb. He contacted his Qaeda instructor in Pakistan repeatedly but received no replies, he said. Then he decided to travel to New York anyway, to build smaller bombs that the three men could strap to themselves and detonate on subway cars, he said.
In September 2009, the police stopped him during his two-day trip east. He believed it was a routine traffic stop, so he continued on his way. He was stopped again as he took the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey to New York. He said a police dog had searched his car, but the police did not open the trunk, in which he was keeping the explosives. “They asked me why I was here, where I’m staying, what I’m doing,” he said.
Afterward, he said, he went to Mr. Ahmedzay’s home to leave the detonator explosive for safekeeping. Realizing they were under surveillance, he and Mr. Ahmedzay flushed the remaining chemicals down the toilet at a mosque.
Mr. Zazi said he later saw Mr. Medunjanin at another mosque. He said he typed a text message on his phone and showed it to Mr. Medunjanin. “The police are after me and we are done,” the message said.
He was arrested soon after he returned to Colorado.
During cross-examination, Mr. Gottlieb asked Mr. Zazi what he hoped to receive in exchange for his candid testimony.
“I hope for a second chance,” Mr. Zazi said. “I believe my crimes are very bad. If God gives me a second chance, I would appreciate it and be a very good human being.”
Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/nyregion/in-terrorism-trial-witness-testifies-about-bomb-making-process.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
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