Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Faisal Shahzad was given a life prison sentence for trying to detonate a car bomb in New York’s Times Square in May. U.S. District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum handed down the sentence today in federal court in Manhattan.
“You are a young man. You’ll have a lot of time to reflect on what you have done and what you have said, today and in the past,” Cedarbaum told Shahzad. The judge said she hopes Shahzad spends some of that time “thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
“The Koran gives us the right to defend, and that’s all I’m doing,” Shahzad answered.
Shahzad, 31, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, admitted he drove a Nissan Pathfinder into the crowded Manhattan intersection laden with improvised explosives. He fled when they failed to go off and was arrested May 3 at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after boarding a flight to Dubai.
He pleaded guilty on June 21 to all 10 terrorism-related charges, including attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction, in an indictment filed by prosecutors in the office of Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara.
“Brace yourself for the war with Islam. This is the first droplet of the flood that will follow,” Shahzad said. “The past nine years, the war with Muslims has achieved nothing for the U.S. except it has awakened Muslims.”
The vehicle, containing a device made of firecrackers, propane tanks and gasoline canisters, was found abandoned on the street as the items in the back smoldered, the U.S. said.
Walked Away
Shahzad told Cedarbaum when he pleaded guilty that he set the bomb’s detonator to go off between 2 1/2 to 5 minutes and then walked away. He said he carried a loaded 9 mm Kel-Tec rifle with him to Times Square, folded it, and put it in a computer laptop bag before walking to the Grand Central Terminal train station, about five blocks away.
He told investigators that he planned to detonate a second bomb if he hadn’t been arrested for the foiled May 1 attack, U.S. prosecutors have said.
The government argued Shahzad deserved a life prison term because his crime was premeditated and because he exploited the benefits of his citizenship to join a foreign terrorist organization intent on attacking the U.S.
Asked by Cedarbaum if he hadn’t taken an oath to the United States in becoming a citizen, Shahzad answered: “I did swear, but I did not mean it.”
The case is U.S. v. Shahzad, 10-00928, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
