The father of an admitted terrorist was convicted Friday of charges he destroyed evidence and lied to investigators to cover up his son's al-Qaida-sanctioned plot to attack the New York City subways in 2009 as one of a trio of suicide bombers.
A Brooklyn jury found the father of Najibullah Zazi guilty of conspiracy and obstruction of justice at a trial detailing the disintegration of a working-class family of Afghan-Americans amid chilling allegations of home-grown terror. The verdict came on the second day of deliberations. Sentencing is set for December 2.
The case featured the testimony of two other family members who pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government to stave off stiff prison terms. They detailed the family's failure to acknowledge Zazi as a budding terrorist and its clumsy attempts to protect him once his plot fell apart. The father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, is guilty of ``lying and convincing others to lie to investigators and the grand jury, and destroying incriminating evidence that was crucial to the FBI's investigation,' Assistant US Attorney Melissa Marrus said in closing arguments.
Deborah Colson, one of the attorneys for the 55-year-old former cab driver from Colorado, argued co-operating family members ``falsely accused our client, Mr. Zazi, just to save themselves.' At trial, a cousin of Najibullah Zazi told jurors that while living in Pakistan he had introduced Zazi to a cleric there who arranged for Zazi and two childhood friends from New York to get explosives and other instruction at an al-Qaida outpost.
Zazi admitted in a guilty plea last year that he returned from Pakistan to his family's Denver-area home to practice cooking up home-made bombs using chemicals extracted from beauty supplies. He then drove to New York City in September 2009 with plans to attack the subway system in a ``martyrdom operation' before he learned he was being watched by FBI and fled back to Colorado.
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