Would-be subway bomber hopes for 2nd chance from cooperating
NEW YORK (AP) — When Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to being the ringleader in a foiled plot to bomb New York City's subway system, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said he was responsible for "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our nation" since the 9/11 attacks.
Nearly a decade later, Zazi has a shot at an improbable second chance.
The 33-year-old is finally scheduled to be sentenced Thursday in federal court in Brooklyn, and prosecutors are expected to credit him with switching sides after his arrest and volunteering valuable intelligence about other al-Qaeda trained terrorists. The cooperation could earn him a far lighter term than the possible life sentence he faces. It might even give him a chance at freedom.
The full extent of Zazi's cooperation has yet to be publicly disclosed. Both prosecutors and his attorney declined to be interviewed in advance of the sentencing hearing.
But some elements of his assistance with U.S. counterterrorism efforts have become public through his testimony in other terror prosecutions.
Other clues about his cooperation are found in a court document, much of it blacked out to hide classified information, filed last year in the case of Zarein Ahmedzay, a fellow conspirator in the New York City subway bombing plot who also decided to help American investigators.
Ahmedzay "met with the government more than 100 times, viewing hundreds of photographs and providing information that assisted law enforcement officials" in several investigations, prosecutors wrote.
In return, the same judge who will decide Zazi's punishment sentenced Ahmedzay last December to only 10 years— essentially time served.
Seamus Hughes, deputy director of George Washington University's Program on Extremism, predicted Zazi would also get...