NO LAWYER, YET
Judge: Bomb susp doesn’t need one till he wakes up
TERRORIST BOMBING suspect Ahmad Rahami has access to plenty of doctors — but not a lawyer.
A New Jersey federal judge rejected a public defender’s call Friday for a court-appointed federal attorney to represent the man suspected in last weekend’s bombings in Chelsea and the Jersey Shore.
Rahami, 28, remained hospitalized under a doctor’s care in Newark after his Monday arrest following a wild gunfight with police.
Rahami was wounded multiple times during the shootout in Linden, N.J., after a local man recognized his face from a wanted poster.
He has mostly remained unconscious and attached to a breathing tube since undergoing surgery, officials said.
U.S. Magistrate Mark Falk agreed with federal prosecutors, who argued Rahami didn’t need a lawyer because he had yet to be arrested on federal charges.
He does face local counts for the gunfight with cops, and was ordered held on $5.2 million bail.
More than 100 Muslim men in Rahami’s town of Elizabeth, N.J., gathered for their first Friday prayer service since his arrest. Rahami’s bombing spree was condemned by the mosque’s imam.
“Nobody has the right to kill any nonMuslim,” said mosque official Syed Fakhruddin Alvi. “If anyone kills a nonMuslim citizen, paradise will be done for him.”
But a detailed criminal complaint against Rahami laid out a likely federal case, with forensic evidence linking the suspect to the weekend terror attacks.
The document also revealed the Chelsea bomb was packed with hundreds of ball bearings and steel nuts to inflict maximum damage. Authorities reported 31 injuries in last Saturday’s blast.
New York federal public defenders had also appealed for a federal court-appointed lawyer, charging that Rahami was grilled by investigators over two days while prevented from speaking to legal counsel.
The complaint revealed Rahami will face federal charges of using weapons of mass destruction, bombing a place of public use, destruction of property and use of a destructive device during a crime of violence.
Authorities said Rahami drove to Manhattan after his first bomb detonated around 9:35 a.m. in Seaside Park, N.J., last Saturday.
The Chelsea bomb exploded about 11 hours later, and cops also recovered a second unexploded bomb four blocks away from the blast site.