The suspected al Qaeda-trained jihadist at the center of a multistate terror probe plotted to detonate homemade bombs in New York on the anniversary of 9/11, federal prosecutors in Denver alleged yesterday.
Prosecutors unveiled details of the alleged plot hours before Najibullah Zazi arrived in New York City to stand trial in Brooklyn federal court.
“The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items,” said Assistant US Attorney Tim Neff.
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“The defendant was in the throes of making a bomb and attempting to perfect his formulation.”
US Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ordered Zazi, 24, held without bail, noting the seriousness of the charges and the suspect’s extensive international contacts. The judge also granted prosecutors permission to transfer Zazi to New York.
A shackled Zazi, once a Queens coffee-cart vendor and a Denver airport-shuttle driver, was then placed on a US Marshals Service plane and brought to New York City.
READ THE MOTION TO DENY ZAZI BAIL
He was being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and will be arraigned Tuesday on a single charge of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, which carries a life sentence.
He’ll be represented by his Denver attorneys, Arthur Folsom and Michael Dowling, according to their spokeswoman, Wendy Aiello.
Zazi’s father, Mohammed Zazi, 53, who has been charged with lying to the feds, has been evicted from his Denver home and placed under federal protection because of death threats, authorities said.
A third man, Ahmad Wais Afzali, a Queens imam accused of lying in the case, was freed on bail Thursday.
In addition to travels to Pakistan, it was revealed that Najibullah Zazi had made numerous trips to Canada, where other terrorist plots have been hatched, including a foiled plan to bomb the Los Angeles airport on the eve of the millennium.
Zazi’s plot represents the most advanced terrorist threat yet uncovered since Sept. 11, 2001.
“They know the details, where he was going out and buying ingredients to buy a homemade bomb,” said Aitan Goelman, a partner at Zuckerman Spaeder and a former federal prosecutor on the team that tried Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols.
“The guy was buying real ingredients,” he said.
Three Brooklyn federal judges, some with experience presiding over terrorist cases, recused themselves yesterday.
The case will be heard by Chief Judge Raymond Dearie.
Prosecutors say Zazi was in the midst of creating hydrogen-peroxide-based explosives to attack the subways or other commuter trains, just like the transit attacks in London on July 7, 2005.
The homemade bombs, made with a witch’s brew of household beauty products such as nail-polish remover, could have been hidden in nine identical backpacks seized from a Queens home that Zazi had visited shortly before Sept. 11, 2009.
Before his arrest, Zazi repeatedly denied being a terrorist.
Evidence cited by the feds include nine pages of bomb-making instructions found on his laptop computer, surveillance video of him buying an unusually amount of beauty-salon products, and residue from his attempts to cook up the bomb ingredients at an Aurora, Colo., hotel.