The Bangladeshi man charged with trying to blow himself up with a pipe bomb near a subway station in New York last year, was a “depressed and unsound” man with no connection to the Islamic State, his lawyer told a Manhattan court on Tuesday (Oct 30).
Akayed Ullah, a 28-year-old former cab driver from Brooklyn, faces up to life in prison for the attempted suicide bombing allegedly carried out in the name of ISIS.
In her opening statement, Akayed Ullah’s lawyer did not deny that her client caused the explosion, but urged the jury to drop the charges that Ullah provided support to Islamic State, designated a terrorist organisation by the United States.
"This case is not about a foreign terrorist organisation planting an operative in our midst," Ullah’s lawyer Julia Gatto from the Federal Defenders of New York told the court.
She described her client as a “depressed and unsound” young man who absorbed “distorted messaging” from the internet regarding the mistreatment of Muslims worldwide.
The explosion carried out by Ullah was labelled as a terrorist attack and during his interrogation he had admitted: “I did it for the Islamic State,”
The prosecution urged the jury to take Ullah’s interrogation confession at his word.
The government’s attorney Rebekah Donaleski said a search of Ullah's computer revealed that he had viewed propaganda urging supporters unable to travel to join Islamic State to carry out "lone wolf" attacks wherever they live.
She noted that shortly before the attack, Ullah had posted a message on his Facebook page saying: “Trump you failed to protect your nation.”
Ullah is charged with providing support to a foreign terrorist organisation, use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing a place of public use, destruction of public property by means of fire or explosive, terrorist attack against mass transportation systems and use of a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence.
Five people sustained minor injuries after the bomb went off at the busy public-transit hub, but Ullah’s lawyer insisted that her client never intended to kill or maim anyone other than himself, and that the improvised bomb in his backpack detonated prematurely.
Ullah’s case had also drawn the attention of President Trump, who repeatedly cited this case as the reason for his call to ban chain migration and visa-lottery system in the US.
Ullah had been living in the US on a Green Card and came here on a visa sponsored by his uncle, under a policy known as chain migration. His uncle had got a visa through the lottery system.
The trial is expected to last two and a half weeks.

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