By TOM HAYS
Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) - A New York
City man, after reciting verses from the Quran rather than expressing
remorse, was sentenced Friday to life in prison in a foiled 2009 plot
that authorities labeled one of the closest calls since the 9/11
attacks.
Adis Medunjanin, a
28-year-old U.S. citizen from Bosnia, had faced a mandatory life term
following his conviction last year of conspiracy to use weapons of mass
destruction and several other terrorism charges stemming from the
al-Qaida-sanctioned scheme hatched with two former high school
classmates.
Appearing in federal court
in Brooklyn, Medunjanin read from the Quran in Arabic for several
minutes before U.S. District Judge John Gleeson interrupted and asked
him if he intended to say anything in English.
The defendant politely
asked for more time to finish one verse, then shifted into a critique of
American society and foreign policy.
"What kind of system
endorses torture?" he said, as some of his relatives wept in the
gallery. "Is this really the best system that humanity ever produced?"
He closed by saying, "I had
nothing to do with any subway plot or bombing plot whatsoever. I ask
Allah to release me from prison."
Gleeson told Medunjanin
that his remarks made him appear more like a robotic "exhibit" of
extremism than the college-educated person who escaped war-torn Bosnia
as a child and grew up in a stable immigrant family in a working-class
section of Queens.
"You create the impression
that you're asking me to sentence you like the committed, anti-American
jihadist you seem to want to be for the rest of your life," the judge
said.
Medunjanin showed no
emotion as the sentence was announced. His parents and sister declined
to speak to reporters as they left the courthouse.
"Adis Medunjanin sought
martyrdom for himself and death for innocent New Yorkers as part of
al-Qaeda's plan to spread terror within our shores," U.S. Attorney
Loretta Lynch said in a statement. "Scores of innocent New Yorkers would
have been killed or maimed had Medunjanin succeeded in his plot."
At a trial earlier this
year, the former classmates, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay,
testified that the three men sought terror training after falling under
the influence of inflammatory recordings of U.S.-born extremist cleric
Anwar al-Awlaki that they downloaded and listened to on their iPods.
Zazi and Ahmedzay, who
testified as part of a plea deal, told jurors that the scheme unfolded
after the trio traveled to Pakistan in 2008 to avenge the U.S. invasion
of Afghanistan by joining the Taliban.
While receiving terror
training at outposts in the South Waziristan region of Pakistan,
al-Qaida operatives encouraged the American recruits to return home for a
suicide-bombing mission intended to spread panic and cripple the
economy. Among the targets considered were the New York Stock Exchange,
Times Square and Grand Central Terminal, the men testified.
In a later meeting in New
York, the plotters decided to strap on bombs and blow themselves up at
rush hour on Manhattan subway lines because the transit system is "the
heart of everything in New York City," Zazi said.
Zazi told jurors how he
learned to extract explosives ingredients from nail polish remover,
hydrogen peroxide and other products sold at beauty supply stores. When
leaving Pakistan, he relocated to Colorado, where he perfected a
homemade detonator in a hotel room and set out for New York City by car
around the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The plot - financed in part
by $50,000 in credit card charges - was abandoned after Zazi noticed
that everywhere he drove in New York, a car followed.
"I think law enforcement is
on us," he recalled telling Ahmedzay. Later, he said, he told
Medunjanin in a text message, "We are done."
Copyright
2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not
be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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