Bangladeshi man to plead guilty to charges stemming from plot to blow up Federal Reserve Bank

Skooter reports 02/01/13

Accused of trying to detonate an alleged 1,000-pound bomb outside the Federal Reserve Bank in Lower Manhattan was a Bangladeshi man and will plead guilty to charges resulting from the plot.

The Banbladeshi man who will appear in Brooklyn federal court in early February is Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis to admit wrongdoing, after his indictment in November by a federal grand jury on terrorism charges, official records show.

On Oct.17, the 21-year-old was arrested by FBI agents shortly after he tried to detonate a car bomb aimed to wreak destruction in the center of the city's Financial District.

He was indicted on one count of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of trying to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

For almost three months, plea negotiations between Nafis' defense attorney, Heidi Cesare, and a team of anti-terrorism prosecutors have been ongoing.

Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney James Loonam told a judge that prosecutors were planning to rely on secret and classified information at Nafis court hearing in the fall. Those facts could come from spy agencies such as the CIA or National Security Agency, as well as from overseas intelligence sources, however these information are classified and possibly not to be made public. The prosecutors had also claimed that they have in possession substantial number of recordings linked to Nafis’ case.

Authorities said Nafis has admitted during the planning stages of the attempted bomb strike that he has links to al Qaeda, and investigators believed that he came to the US with the purpose of creating a terror cell and initiating an attack.

Undercover FBI agents posing as supporters provides Nafis with a phony bomb to use in the Federal Reserve Bank attack, which Nafis tried to detonate with a radio-controlled triggering device.

The public was never at risk during Nafis' failed effort to trigger the false bomb in the middle of the Lower Manhattan morning rush hour, authorities said.

The wanna be bomber is being detained without bail, and if convicted of the charges could face life imprisonment.

NYP