A Bangladeshi man accused of trying to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb outside the Federal Reserve Bank in lower Manhattan will plead guilty to charges stemming from the plot.
Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21, will appear in Brooklyn federal court this month to admit wrongdoing, following his indictment in November on terrorism charges, official records show.
He was arrested Oct. 17 by FBI agents shortly after he tried to detonate a car bomb intended to wreak destruction in the heart of the city’s Financial District.
Nafis was later indicted on one count of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.
Plea negotiations between Nafis’ attorney, Heidi Cesare, and a team of anti-terrorism prosecutors have been ongoing for nearly three months.
At a court hearing in the fall, Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney James Loonam informed a judge that prosecutors were planning to rely on secret and classified information at Nafis’ trial.
That evidence could come from spy agencies – such as the Central Intelligence Agency or National Security Agency – as well as from overseas intelligence sources, but these details are classified and unlikely to be made public.
Prosecutors had also indicated that they possessed a “substantial” number of recordings connected to Nafis’ case.
During the planning stages of the attempted bomb strike, authorities say Nafis had spoken of his connections to al Qaeda, and investigators believed that he came to the US with the intention of creating a terror cell and launching an attack.
Undercover FBI agents posing as sympathizers supplied Nafis with an fake bomb to use in the Federal Reserve Bank attack, which Nafis tried to detonate with a radio-controlled triggering device.
Authorities say that the public was never at risk during Nafis’ failed effort to trigger the phony bomb in the midst of the Lower Manhattan morning rush hour.
Nafis, who is being held in custody without bail, could face life in prison if convicted of the charges.