Court records suggest the Bangladeshi youth accused of trying to blow up New York Federal Reserve Bank will plead guilty next week, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ashan Nafis was taken into custody in a lower Manhattan hotel room in October last year after he allegedly tried to use a cellular phone to detonate what he believed to be a 1,000-pound bomb in a van parked outside the New York Fed.
According to the electronic record for his criminal case, a “guilty plea” has been scheduled at noon on Feb 7 for Nafis.
Nafis was arrested following a nearly four-month sting.
In November, he pleaded not guilty when he was charged in a two-count indictment with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and providing material support to a terrorism group.
The WSJ contacted Nafis’s lawyer who declined to comment on the matter.
It was confirmed by a spokesman for the US Attorney’s office that a hearing had been scheduled in the case, but did not want to talk more about the matter.
According to court documents, the sting began in July 2012 shortly after Nafis tried to recruit a Federal Bureau of Investigation informant to form a terror cell. He was later introduced to an undercover FBI agent posing as an al-Qaeda contact.
Last August, Nafis allegedly told the undercover agent that he wanted to target the financial district of Manhattan and was contemplating a suicide bombing at the New York Stock Exchange, the documents reveal.
He later said he hoped the attack would disrupt the 2012 presidential elections and ultimately decided to attack the New York Fed.
In an article he wrote ahead of the attack to describe his motivations, Nafis allegedly wrote, “I came up to this conclusion that targeting America’s economy is the most efficient way to draw the path of obliteration of America.”bdnews24.com
