NEW YORK (AP) – The conviction of a Bangladeshi immigrant who set off a pipe bomb attached to his chest in New York City’s busiest subway station was properly returned by a Manhattan jury, a judge said in a decision released Monday.
The December 2017 attack by Akayed Ullah, 30, of Brooklyn, fizzled when the bomb barely exploded, burning Ullah but causing mostly minor injuries to others.
Judge Richard Sullivan rejected several challenges by Ullah to his November 2018 conviction for the attack in subway tunnels beneath Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal. Those challenges included a claim that he did not provide support to the Islamic State group.
Sullivan said in a decision dated Dec. 31 but placed in the public record Monday that evidence “amply establishes” that Ullah acted at the group’s direction by “heeding the call of the organization’s propaganda and recruiting materials.”
The judge noted that Ullah told arresting officers that he had viewed a video encouraging the kind of attack he tried to carry out. Sullivan said Ullah also told police that he carried out the attack “for the Islamic State.”