Afghan Immigrant Is Convicted of 2016 Chelsea Bombings
10/16/2017
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A jury decided on Monday that Ahmad Khan Rahimi (also “Rahami” in some reports) was guilty of setting up two pressure-cooker bombs in New York City that injured 30 people last summer.

Rahimi provides a cautionary tale about diverse immigrants because he seemed to be quite successfully assimilated as a young man. He arrived with his family at age seven in 1995, and was described as “very funny,” someone who “got along with everyone” in high school.

But Rahimi’s positive attitude toward America apparently disappeared following a trip to his homeland of Afghanistan. The mother of his daughter observed, “He would speak often of Western culture and how it was different back home, how there weren’t homosexuals in Afghanistan.” [Editor’s note: Funny, given Afghan men’s fondness for bonking boys!]

Nice that the bomber faces a mandatory life sentence.

New Jersey man convicted in New York City bombings that injured 30, Fox News, October 16, 2017

A New Jersey man was convicted Monday of planting two pressure-cooker bombs on New York City streets, including one that injured 30 people with a rain of shrapnel when it detonated in a bustling neighborhood on a weekend night last summer.

The verdict came after a two-week trial of Ahmad Khan Rahimi, 29, an Afghanistan-born man living in Elizabeth just outside New York. The charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place, carry a maximum punishment of life in prison.

Prosecutors said Rahimi considered himself “a soldier in a holy war against Americans” and was inspired by the Islamic State terror group and Al Qaeda to carry out the late summer attacks in New York and New Jersey.

“Rahimi’s crimes of hate have been met with swift and resolute justice,” Acting U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said in a statement. “Just over a year after his attacks, and following a fair and open trial, Rahimi now stands convicted of his crimes of terror by a unanimous jury of New Yorkers.”

In his closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Emil Bove described an unusually large amount of evidence that pointed to Rahimi, including his fingerprints and DNA that were found on bombs in the Sept. 17 attack.

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