Metro

Judge won’t suppress statements in subway terror case

A Queens man accused of plotting a suicide bomb attack in New York’s subways lost his bid today to exclude statements he made to FBI agents from his upcoming trial.

Attorneys for Adis Medunjanin had argued that remarks he made following his arrest at the FBI’s New York office should be thrown out from their client’s terror trial because Medunjanin had already hired an attorney to defend him and was immune from questioning.

But Brooklyn federal Judge Raymond Dearie issued an order today rejecting that argument and permitted federal prosecutors to use material from Medunjanin’s interview at the trial.

The judge also ruled that secret evidence against Medunjanin obtained under Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act can also be introduced at his New York trial.

This evidence could come from spy agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency or National Security Agency, as well as overseas intelligence sources, but details about the information has been classified and to date has not made public.

Dearie did not elaborate on the rationale for his rulings, but said a detailed judicial memorandum would be issued in the near future.

Another man charged in the subway terror plot case, Najibullah Zazi, has already pleaded guilty to terror-related charges.

Zazi admitted that he traveled to Wazirstan on Pakistan’s northwest frontier with Afghanistan.

While there, he received instruction at an al Qaeda training camp on using common household chemicals to build bombs — part of the effort to launch suicide attacks in New York’s subways.

US Attorney General Eric Holder has referred to the scheme as one of the most serious terror threats planned on American soil since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Medunjanin’s brush with law enforcement came after FBI agents searched his Queens apartment in January 2010.

Following the search, he panicked, jumped in his car, sped off at 90 mph, and slammed into another car on the Whitestone Expressway, according to court testimony by an FBI agent.

Because he feared arrest in the bomb plot, Medunjanin believed that he could turn his car into a deadly missile – part of a last ditch and ill-conceived effort to launch a terror strike.

“He thought this would be an act of jihad — that there would be an explosion and this would kill people,” FBI special agent Farbod Azad testified earlier this year.

Moments before the collision at the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge — which caused minor injuries — Medunjanin had called 911 to announce his intentions, the agent said.

“We love death more than you love life!” he said in Arabic.

After he was detained following the crash, Medunjanin confessed to FBI agents that he had deliberately crashed the car.

“He viewed himself as a prisoner of war, caught on the battlefield,” Azad testified.