A young Bosnian man accused of receiving al-Qaeda training and conspiring to murder pleaded not guilty to the charges in a New York court on Saturday.
Bosnian-born US citizen Adis Medunjanin, 25, appeared for arraignment at a Brooklyn federal court to answer charges that he received “military-type training” in Pakistan from al-Qaeda, along with two other men, and conspired to commit murder from there.
A bail hearing was scheduled for Thursday.
The 25-year-old was one of two Queens men arrested early on Friday in connection with the investigation of Najibullah Zazi, a Colorado airport driver indicted last year for planning a bombing spree around the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Zazi pleaded not guilty last year to supporting terrorism.
The indictment made public by prosecutors on Saturday provided scant details on the accusations against Medunjanin, who was born in Bosnia but is a US citizen.
Medunjanin, also known as “Mohammed,” was arrested by FBI agents along with taxi driver Zarein Ahmedzay.
Zazi told FBI agents he had traveled to Pakistan to receive weapons and explosives training at an al-Qaeda camp, court documents say.
The New York Times reported that both Ahmedzay and Medunjanin had participated in Zazi’s Pakistan trip in August 2008, making them prime suspects in the unfolding bomb plot probe. It said the trio attended the same New York high school.
Zazi, who is also being held in detention pending trial in Brooklyn, is accused of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
Prosecutors say Zazi traveled to New York with bomb-making instructions in a laptop. He also allegedly shopped for large quantities of chemicals found in beauty products that could have been the ingredients for explosives.
The new indictment did not directly tie Medunjanin to the New York plot — which US Attorney General Eric Holder has called one of the most serious terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
But it has since been overtaken by a foiled Christmas Day attack aboard a US-bound plane carrying nearly 300 people by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who had explosives stitched into his underwear.
The incident sparked global alarm and President Barack Obama ordered a sweeping overhaul of flawed intelligence services.
Under fire for the failing, Obama has repeatedly singled out the Zazi investigation as proof that US intelligence is in fact doing a good job against US foes.
After Zazi’s arrest, officials moved in on Ahmedzay, who was charged with making false statements to the FBI, apparently lying about where he traveled in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Ahmedzay made trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2008 and was questioned by the FBI last year, his attorney Michael Marinaccio said. He has family in both countries.
But to infer that Ahmedzay was part of a terrorist plot would “be stretching” the charge against him, Marinaccio said.
Medunjanin was apparently arrested after a car accident as he tried to flee FBI agents who were trailing him. They had earlier gone to his house with a search warrant and confiscated his US passport.
Ahmedzay and Zazi are both Afghan immigrants.
The only other people charged in the alleged plot are Zazi’s father and a New York imam, both also accused of lying to the FBI, but not of engaging in acts of terror.
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