N.Y. subway bombing suspect faces charges from his hospital bed

NEW YORK (AP) — A Bangladeshi immigrant accused of setting off a pipe bomb in the New York subway system had his first court appearance on Wednesday via video from the hospital room where he is recovering from burns sustained in the blast.

Akayed Ullah said little during the hearing, which lasted a little over 10 minutes. He could be seen on the video lying on a hospital bed with his head propped up on a pillow and his body covered up to his neck in sheets. Two assistant public defenders, who stood beside his hospital bed, did not request bail.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker, sitting in a federal courthouse in Manhattan, communicated with Ullah via video shown on several monitors in the courtroom. She read him his rights as he nodded his head several times, acknowledging that he understood.

Ullah didn’t enter a plea but answered a few of the judge’s questions, including answering “I can see you” when she asked if he could hear her and “yes I do” when he was asked if he understood his rights.

Ullah, 27, is accused of detonating a pipe bomb that was strapped to his body in a pedestrian tunnel linking two busy subway stations. He was the only person seriously injured.

Prosecutors said that after his capture he told interrogators he was on a mission to punish the U.S. for attacking the Islamic State group.

Officials in Bangladesh said Wednesday that Ullah, who lived in Brooklyn but was married to a woman in Bangladesh, had asked his wife to read the writings and listen to the sermons of Moulana Jasimuddin Rahmani, the imprisoned leader of a banned group called Ansarullah Bangla Team.

The group has been linked to killings and attacks on secular academics and atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Rahmani is serving time in prison for his involvement in the killings.

The wife was questioned in Bangladesh and told investigators Ullah discussed Rahman’s writings with her during his last visit home, said Monirul Islam, a top official of Bangladesh’s counterterrorism department.