New York bombing suspect could face hearing in hospital bed
NEW YORK, Sept 21 (Reuters) - A lawyer for an Afghan-born U.S. citizen charged with bombings in New York and New Jersey over the weekend asked a federal judge to schedule his first court appearance for Wednesday, possibly in his hospital bed.
Ahmad Khan Rahami, 28, was arrested on Monday after a gunfight with police in Linden, New Jersey. He is now receiving treatment for his wounds at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey, where he could formally face his charges if he cannot travel to the U.S. District Court in Manhattan, his lawyer said.
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"He has been held and questioned by federal law enforcement agents since his arrest," David Patton, head of the New York City federal public defenders office, said in a court filing. "The Sixth Amendment (of the U.S. Constitution) requires that he be given access to counsel on the federal charges, and that he be presented without delay."
Patton also asked to meet with Rahami on Wednesday. Police also have said they have not yet been able to interview Rahami.
Federal prosecutors said Rahami injured 31 people in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood with a homemade bomb that detonated on Saturday night in a case that law enforcement authorities now regard as terrorism.
Rahami is also charged with planting bombs that went off in Seaside Park, New Jersey, and his hometown of Elizabeth, New Jersey, but did not injure anyone. He faces charges from federal prosecutors in both states.
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"Inshallah (God willing), the sounds of bombs will be heard in the streets," Rahami wrote in a journal he was carrying when arrested, according to prosecutors. "Gun shots to your police. Death to your oppression."
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Federal prosecutors portrayed Rahami, who came to the United States at age 7 and became a naturalized citizen, as embracing militant Islamic views, begging begged for martyrdom and expressing outrage at the U.S. "slaughter" of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Palestine.
Rahami, in other parts of his journal, praised "Brother" Osama bin Laden, the al Qaeda leader slain in a 2011 U.S. raid in Pakistan; Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric and leading al Qaeda propagandist who was killed in a 2011 U.S. drone strike in Yemen; and Nidal Hasan, the U.S. Army psychiatrist who shot dead 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
The attacks were the latest in a series in the United States inspired by militant groups including al Qaeda and Islamic State. A pair of ethnic Chechen brothers killed three people and injured more than 260 at the 2013 Boston Marathon with homemade pressure-cooker bombs similar to those used in this weekend's attacks.
In the past year, an Orlando gunman and a married couple in San Bernardino killed dozens in mass shootings inspired by Islamic State.
LEARN MORE: The deadliest mass shootings in American history
Some 135 heads of state descend on New York this week for the annual U.N. General Assembly, prompting officials to step up an already heavy security presence. A block of New York's 42nd Street in Times Square was briefly closed on Wednesday morning as police examined a suspicious package, which was determined to be harmless.
Federal investigators were probing Rahami's history of travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and looking for any evidence that he may have been picked up radical views or trained in bomb-making on those trips. They still are trying to find out whether he received any help in planning his attack or building the bombs.
His father, Mohammad Rahami, told reporters outside his family's chicken restaurant on Tuesday that he had called the Federal Bureau of Investigation about two years ago to report concerns about his son's involvement with militants.
READ MORE: Father of bombing suspect told police his son was a terrorist in 2014
The FBI confirmed that it had looked into the younger Rahami after what it called a "domestic dispute" but found no evidence tying him to terrorism.
The charging documents lay out a wide swath of evidence pointing to Rahami as the bomber. Surveillance video places him in the area, and his fingerprints were on unexploded devices including a pressure-cooker bomb found blocks away from the blast.
If Rahami's first court appearance occurs in the hospital bed, he would not be the first U.S. terrorism suspect to be charged in such a venue.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted last year for his role in the Boston Marathon attacks and sentenced to death, also first faced charges in his hospital bed while he was still recovering from injuries sustained in a gunfight with police. (Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Will Dunham)
