Guilty of tunnel blast
Blames Trump for his failed terror attack
The Bangladeshi immigrant who detonated a pipe bomb in a crowded pedestrian tunnel linking the PA Bus Terminal to Times Square was convicted on all counts Tuesday — then blamed his failed attack on President Trump.
“I was angry with Donald Trump because he says he will bomb the Middle East and then he will protect his nation,” Akayed Ullah ranted after jurors left the courtroom.
Ullah, 28, denied trying to kill commuters for ISIS, as he had confessed to an NYPD detective following the Dec. 11, 2017, blast.
“I didn’t do it for ISIS group,” he said. “They are trying to put me in the group, which I don’t support, your honor.”
He faces up to life in prison.
Ullah was the only person injured when the bomb strapped to his body exploded in an underground walkway connecting the Times Square subway sta- tion and the bus terminal.
The eight-woman, fourman jury found Ullah guilty of six felonies, including using a weapon of mass destruction and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.
The evidence against him included surveillance video that shows him falling to the floor following the explosion.
Ullah’s defense lawyers admitted at trial that he detonated the device but claimed he only meant to harm himself. They also argued — in a bid to avoid life behind bars — that he wasn’t motivated by ISIS but rather by US policies he felt hurt Muslims.
But prosecutors cited a Facebook post Ullah made right before the blast in which he said, “O Trump, you failed to protect your nation,” followed by the word “baqiah,” which prosecutors said was “a slogan for ISIS.”
“It was about martyrdom, not suicide,” prosecutor Shawn Crowley said during her closing arguments. “Don’t let him run from what he has done.”