NYC bomb plot suspect Zazi appears in Brooklyn court; AP sources says he plans guilty plea

NYC terrorism suspect appears for expected plea

NEW YORK — New York City terrorism suspect Najibullah Zazi (nah-jee-BOO’-lah ZAH’-zee) is in a Brooklyn courtroom as law enforcement officials say he is expected to plead guilty to terrorism charges.

The 25-year-old former Denver airport shuttle driver appeared Monday in a blue and orange jail uniform with his attorney in Brooklyn federal court.

Law enforcement officials tell The Associated Press Zazi will enter a guilty plea to terrorism charges. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is in progress.

Zazi was arrested in the fall after arousing authorities’ suspicions by driving cross-country from Denver to New York around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Authorities say he received al-Qaida training in Pakistan, bought beauty supplies in Colorado and tried to use them to cook up homemade bombs in a Colorado hotel room.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

NEW YORK (AP) — A former Denver airport shuttle driver is preparing to plead guilty to terrorism charges in a plot hatched around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 hijackings to attack New York City with homemade bombs, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press on Monday.

Najibullah Zazi, 24, has begun talking to authorities and plans a guilty plea that could come as early as Monday, law enforcement officials told the AP, speaking on condition of anonymity because the investigation continues.

Zazi’s attorney, William Stampur, didn’t immediately return a telephone message Monday.

As important as a plea would be, Zazi may be far more valuable to investigators as a source for information about co-conspirators in the United States and Pakistan.

Three people with inside knowledge of the investigation confirmed that the jailed Zazi recently volunteered information about the alleged bomb plot during a meeting with his attorney and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. The sit-down, known as a proffer session, typically signals that a defendant has begun cooperating in a bid for a plea deal.

Zazi — accused of receiving explosives training in an al-Qaida terrorism camp in Pakistan — told prosecutors that he was armed with bomb-making components while en route to New York City last year, but flushed them down the toilet in a New York City apartment after getting spooked by a traffic stop on the George Washington Bridge while entering the city, the people said.

Zazi had driven a rented car from Denver to New York, arriving Sept. 10, 2009, the day before the eighth anniversary of the 2001 attacks.

He was allowed to go free after what was described as a routine traffic stop on the bridge, which connects New Jersey and New York. Authorities days later raided several Queens apartments, including a friend’s home where Zazi had stayed.

The government alleges that the airport driver and others bought beauty supplies in Colorado to make peroxide-based bombs before he tried to mix the explosives in a hotel room there, then set out cross-country by car in September. Searches of his car after he arrived turned up bomb-making plans on a laptop computer, but no actual devices or materials.

The cooperation by Zazi suggests prosecutors hope to expand the case and bring charges against other suspects in his case and possibly other terrorism probes. At the time of Zazi’s arrest, Attorney General Eric Holder called the case the most serious terrorism threat since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Amid the debate over whether alleged al-Qaida and other terrorism suspects should be tried in civilian courts, federal prosecutors have sought to demonstrate that they can persuade suspects like Zazi to cooperate and provide more reliable information without coercion.

One of the people familiar with the Zazi case told the AP that Zazi decided to offer the information after being warned that his mother could face criminal immigration charges.

Zazi’s father was charged this month with trying to get rid of chemicals and other evidence. But it appears he was cut a break: After initially demanding that he be jailed in Brooklyn without bail, prosecutors agreed to a deal on Feb. 17 releasing him on $50,000 bond and allowing him to return to his home in suburban Denver.

By contrast, bond for a Queens imam charged with lying to the FBI about phone contact with Zazi when Zazi was in New York was set at $1.5 million. A friend of Zazi, New York cab driver Zarein Ahemdzay, was jailed without bail on a similar lying charge.

Another one of the people said that Zazi told prosecutors that he made roughly two pounds of a powerful and highly unstable explosive called triacetone triperoxide, or TATP.

Court documents indicate that Zazi and others bought acetone — nail polish remover — and other ingredients that can be used to make TATP. The same explosive was used by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid in 2001 and the terrorists who carried out the London bombings in 2005 that killed 52 people.

In those instances, TATP was not the main charge; it was the detonator. The 1.5 grams in Reid’s shoe was supposed to help detonate the plastic explosives aboard a jetliner, and it was used to set off a mixture of black pepper and hydrogen peroxide in London.

Experts have said the TATP in the Zazi case was probably going to be just the detonator.

The FBI’s New York office and the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn declined to comment Monday.

Authorities say Ahmedzay and another New Yorker charged in the case, Adis Medunjanin, traveled to Pakistan with Zazi in 2008. Medunjanin has pleaded not guilty to charges he conspired to kill U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan and remains jailed.

The three men, former high school classmates in Queens, are scheduled to appear in federal court in Brooklyn on Feb. 25.

Officials earlier confirmed reports week that Zazi’s uncle had been arraigned on a felony count in secret — a sign that he also could be cooperating.

Associated Press writer Devlin Barrett in Washington contributed to this report.

(This version CORRECTS Zazi’s age to 25 instead of 24.)