Times Square Bomber Sentenced to Life in Prison

Added by James Morley on October 6, 2010

Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-born US citizen who attempted to set off a car-bomb in New York’s Times Square was given life in prison without the possibility of parole, after a trial marked by waves of threat making addressed to the US and its involvement in Afghanistan.

On Saturday, May 1, Faisal Shahzad parked a sports utility vehicle in Time Square with the engine running and hazard lights flashing.

The bomb plot was foiled when a bomb squad defused the device made from fire crackers and propane gas tanks. While trying to return to Pakistan, Shahzad was arrested on a jetliner at the JFK Airport, two days after the attempted attack.

Shahzad, son of a Pakistani vice air marshal, had received bomb-making training from the Taliban group in Pakistan.

During the trial, US District Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum noted that, Faisal Shahzad also “falsely swore allegiance to his country”, as he recently became a US citizen.

She also said that “His desire is not to defend the United States and Americans but to kill them […] the defendant has repeatedly expressed total lack of remorse, his desire, if given the opportunity, to repeat the crime.”

“… brace yourselves because the war with Muslims has just begun […] consider me the first droplet of the flood that will follow.”, Shahzad said.

Shahzad pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including use of a weapon of mass destruction and terrorism transcending national borders.