Would-be bomber was ‘extraordinary’ witness
A would-be suicide bomber was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after federal officials hailed his “extraordinary” work as a witness against Al Qaeda.
Zarein Ahmedzay, 33, has already served most of the time imposed and is likely to walk free within months barely nine years after his arrest.
“I am ashamed to say that I associated myself with people who use Islam to justify terror against innocent people,” the Queens resident said in open court. “I was young, naive and stupid enough to justify it.”
His 2010 move to switch sides and become a cooperating federal witness “was the best decision I ever made,” said Ahmedzay, who was joined in the Brooklyn courtroom by two FBI agents there to offer support.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Douglas Pravda laid out a litany of Ahmedzay’s efforts in the aftermath of his 2009 arrest for plotting a suicide bombing in the subway. “He’s provided critical intelligence about Al Qaeda, both about its internal workings and its external operations,” he said. “He has completely disavowed the person he used to be.”
A 20-page filing by the Brooklyn Federal Attorney Richard Donoghue detailed how Ahmedzay met with investigators on more than 100 occasions, viewed hundreds of photos and testified at three terrorism trials.
Ahmedzay became a cooperating witness six months after he was arrested for volunteering as a suicide bombers targeting the country’s largest subway system.