An Afghan-born airport worker charged with planning a bombing campaign could have been plotting to strike New York on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks, prosecutors said Friday.
Assistant US Attorney Tim Neff told a hearing in Denver that Najibullah Zazi, 24, who was indicted on bombing charges Thursday, had driven to New York on September 9 before returning to Colorado.
Neff described Zazi's movements as "a chilling, disturbing sequence of events that indicated he intended to make a bomb and intended to be in New York City on 9/11."
Prosecutors say Zazi left New York after receiving a tip-off that he was being watched by federal agents. His rented car was towed away and examined. A laptop found in the car included instructions on how to make a bomb.
Zazi was remanded in custody Friday and flown to New York where he will be tried after US Magistrate Craig Shaffer ruled there was a case to answer.
"Based upon my review of the proffers I find there is considerable evidence or information to suggest these are extremely serious charges," Shaffer was quoted as saying by the Denver Post.
"Not only are they serious charges but this defendant played an integral part in the steps and activities that culminated in the indictment in the eastern district of New York."
Zazi, dressed in khaki trousers and a white t-shirt, sat quietly throughout the hearings speaking only to confirm basic information and that he understood the charges against him.
Zazi's case is the most prominent in a flurry of counter-terrorism investigations that have been disclosed by law enforcement agencies this week.
On Thursday, justice officials in Illinois and Texas announced they had arrested two men who had plotted to blow up buildings.
The two cases were separate and not related to the investigation into Zazi, officials said.
The Texas case involved a Jordanian teenager, Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, accused of attempting to bomb Dallas's 60-story Fountain Place skyscraper.
Smadi, 19, was led into a Dallas court-room in handcuffs on Friday to face the charges against him, which his family in Amman said had been "fabricated."
Smadi, who spoke in faltering English to confirm he understood the charges against him, was remanded in custody after officials set an October 5 date for a probable cause hearing.
Smadi was arrested Thursday as he attempted to plant a car packed with inert explosives at his chosen target, the final act of an undercover sting operation by FBI agents lasting several months.
Smadi is alleged to have told undercover FBI agents posing as members of an Al Qaeda sleeper cell that he had come to the United States specifically to commit "Jihad for the sake of God."
However Smadi's father said in Amman that his son was innocent and that allegations against him had been "fabricated."
"My son is innocent and the charges are false," Maher Hussein Smadi told AFP. "We as a family never believed in terrorism and we never believed in violence."
"The FBI fabricated the entire thing to embarrass (President Barack) Obama because of his good relations with Muslims," added the father.
Smadi's case paralleled a federal investigation in Illinois, which saw a 29-year-old man, Michael Finton, arrested on Wednesday on charges of attempted murder after another undercover sting.
Like Smadi, Finton was arrested as he attempted to park a vehicle packed with inert explosives.
The tactics used in the cases stirred debate about the issue of entrapment on Friday, with analysts noting that law enforcement agencies had to perform a tricky balancing act when using undercover agents.
David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University, Washington DC, described entrapment as a "legitimate but complicated and risky" tactic.
"On the one hand to place an informant in a group of people who might be planning some illegal conduct is one of the most effective ways to prevent the attack from occurring," he said.
"(...) The danger with that however is that you can create crimes that would otherwise never have occurred."
Source: AFP Global Edition
