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New York|Would-Be Bomber Is Imprisoned Again After Donating to Co-Conspirators
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/nyregion/zazi-terrorism-detention.html
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Najibullah Zazi admitted plotting an attack on the New York City subway with two friends, and then testified against them. Now he is behind bars after putting money in their prison accounts.
Sept. 14, 2025, 10:58 a.m. ET
A man who plotted a terror attack on the New York City subway system with his best friends before testifying against them is again incarcerated after sending them a few hundred dollars in prison, according to his lawyer.
The man, Najibullah Zazi, was originally arrested in 2009 for hatching the plan with two high school classmates from Flushing, Queens. He pleaded guilty, provided information to the U.S. authorities about Al Qaeda and testified at two federal trials. He earned praise from prosecutors for rejecting extremism and, ultimately, received a sentence that reflected his cooperation.
But in May, Mr. Zazi, now 40, was arrested in North Carolina and appeared in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, where he was accused of violating the terms of his release, including by making unauthorized contact with a terrorist organization.
Thomas Nooter, Mr. Zazi’s lawyer, said on Saturday that the charges were based on four payments, totaling several hundred dollars, sent anonymously to the prison commissary accounts of his friends and former co-conspirators, Zarein Ahmedzay and Adis Medunjanin.
The payments, sent in March, were part of Mr. Zazi’s annual religious charitable giving to the poor, or zakat, Mr. Nooter said. But Mr. Zazi is now accused of communicating with “individuals or organizations that are affiliated with foreign terrorist organizations.” He pleaded not guilty.
It is not clear how prosecutors discovered that Mr. Zazi, who had been living in North Carolina, was the source of the payments, or whether they were his first. Mr. Zazi has also been accused of failing to report his contact with local law enforcement, after an incident in which a storage unit he had rented was burglarized, Mr. Nooter said.
