NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� A Bangladeshi immigrant is rightly serving a for a fizzled 2017 subway bombing attack beneath New York City鈥檚 Times Square, a federal appeals panel said Tuesday while reversing his conviction for providing material support to the Islamic State extremist group.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Akayed Ullah was appropriately sentenced to life in 2021 for the planned suicide attack that largely failed when an explosive attached to Ullah鈥檚 chest barely exploded.
The Manhattan-based 2nd Circuit found that the separate charge of providing material support to the Islamic State group required that Ullah work under the terror group鈥檚 control even though he was acting alone. A three-judge panel left intact other charges that support his life term.
The appeals court said Ullah cannot be directed by the group 鈥渋f he is acting alone, and if ISIS does not know he exists, has no expectation he will hear ISIS鈥檚 messages or act on them, and will not know, or care, or have any recourse if he ignores the message completely.鈥�
That Ullah 鈥渃onceived of himself as a soldier of ISIS does not establish that ISIS did, in fact, control or direct his actions,鈥� it added.
In a dissent, Judge said it was unsurprising that Ullah was convicted by a jury of providing material support to the terror group when the evidence they saw included Ullah’s statement to investigators that he 鈥渄id it on behalf of the Islamic State.鈥�
Still, though, two of the 2nd Circuit panel’s three judges concluded he acted 鈥渆ntirely independently鈥� of the Islamic State group, Menashi noted.
鈥淭hat is wrong,鈥� he wrote. 鈥淭o reach the opposite conclusion, the majority rewrites the material-support statute and ignores the evidence presented to the jury.鈥�
A lawyer for Ullah and a spokesperson for prosecutors both declined to comment.
At his April 2021 sentencing, Ullah requested leniency.
鈥淵our honor, what I did on Dec. 11, it was wrong,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 can tell you from the bottom of my heart, I鈥檓 deeply sorry. … I do not support harming innocent people.鈥�
Judge Richard J. Sullivan, who now sits on the 2nd Circuit, told him at sentencing that a life sentence was appropriate.
鈥淚t was a truly barbaric and heinous crime,鈥� Sullivan said.
The attack in a pedestrian tunnel beneath Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal left Ullah seriously burned but spared some pedestrians nearby from more serious injuries, though the government noted one bystander lost 70% of his hearing.
Hours after Ullah鈥檚 bombing attempt, President Donald Trump derided the immigration system that had allowed Ullah 鈥� and multitudes of law-abiding Bangladeshis 鈥� to enter the U.S.
The 2nd Circuit ruling comes six weeks after two teenagers were criminally charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization for allegedly to a 鈥淪top the Islamic Takeover of New York City鈥� event outside the Manhattan residence of Mayor Zohran Mamdani. The did not explode.
A criminal complaint against the men alleged that they were inspired by the Islamic State group.
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