Faisal Shahzad

Faisal Shahzad (; born , 1979) is a Pakistani-American man who was arrested for the attempted May 1, 2010, Times Square car bombing. On , 2010, in Federal District Court in Manhattan, he confessed to 10 counts arising from the bombing attempt. Throughout his court appearance, Shahzad was unrepentant. The United States Attorney indicated there was no plea deal, so Shahzad faced the maximum sentence, a mandatory life term.

Shahzad was arrested approximately 53 hours after the attempt, Shahzad waived his constitutional right to a speedy hearing.

Shahzad has reportedly implicated himself in the crimes, and has given information to authorities since his arrest. Shahzad admitted to receiving training in bomb-making at a camp run by the Taliban in the Waziristan region in Pakistan along the Afghan border.

Shahzad is married and the father of two children, both born in the United States. Since 1997, he had lived mostly in the United States, attending college on extended visas, and earning an undergraduate degree and an MBA at the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He worked for two major companies, Arden and Affinion Group (2006-2009), as a financial analyst before quitting his jobs. He separated from his wife, Huma Mian, in 2009 and she returned with their children to her parents in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. His father was born in the village of Mohib Banda (near Peshawar). Shahzad comes from a wealthy, well-educated family in northwest Pakistan. His father was a senior official in the Pakistan Air Force, holding the rank of air vice-marshal (the equivalent of a two-star general) before leaving the air force in 1992. His children grew up in privilege. He is a deputy director general of the Civil Aviation Authority of Pakistan. He had begun as a common airman, but became a fighter pilot excelling in aerobatics, and was posted in England and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. but Shahzad identified himself as Pashtun.

The New York Times reported that Shahzad's life seems to have followed a "familiar narrative about radicalization in the West: his anger toward his adopted country seemed to have grown in lockstep with his personal struggles. He had lost his home to foreclosure last year. At the same time he was showing signs of a profound, religiously infused alienation." In high school, he received Ds in English composition and microeconomics.

Shahzad studied for five semesters in 1997 and 1998 at the now-defunct Southeastern University in Washington D.C., where he took mostly business classes. He received several Cs and Ds, an F in basic statistics, and a grade point average of 2.78. In December 1998, he was granted an F-1 student visa. In 1999 he was placed on a US Customs (later merged into DHS) travel lookout list called the "Traveler Enforcement Compliance System".

In 2000, Shahzad transferred to the University of Bridgeport in Bridgeport, Connecticut. On weekends, he would go to Bengali-themed nightclubs in New York City. A classmate remembered Shahzad watching news footage of the September 11 attacks in New York, and saying, "They had it coming." Just before graduation, in April 2002, he was granted an H1-B visa for skilled workers.

Huma Asif Mian, a 2004 graduate of the University of Colorado, Boulder, majored in accounting. Mian was born in the United States to Pakistani-born parents. Mian's father is Mohammad Asif Mian, a petroleum engineering expert. He has written a number of books and technical manuals, including a best-selling book on project economics and decision analysis; worked for companies such as Saudi Aramco and Qatar General Petroleum; and has two master's degrees from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. After Shahzad was arrested, his father-in-law Mohammad Asif Mian said: "to go to this extreme, this is unbelievable. He has lovely children. Two really lovely children. As a father I would not be able to afford to lose my children."

In January 2006, Shahzad was granted permanent residence status (a "green card"). then located at 100 Connecticut Avenue, Norwalk. A few weeks later, he abruptly quit his job and stopped making payments on his house, defaulting on the $218,400 mortgage.

The New York Times reported that since 2006, he had become more religiously devout and struggled with questions about Muslims in the world. While in Pakistan, he said he trained at a terrorist training camp in what was believed to be Waziristan, according to law enforcement officials. Time suggested that his family's background in northwestern Pakistan meant that Shahzad likely spoke Pashto, a rare asset for a Western volunteer in the training camps.

Shahzad's most recent stay in Pakistan lasted for five months; he returned to the U.S. on , 2010, on an Emirates flight from Dubai.

Shahzad was believed to have bought the 1993 Nissan Pathfinder that was used in the car bomb attempt within three weeks prior to the incident. The vehicle was purchased through an ad on Craigslist, for $1,300. Shahzad reportedly paid a Connecticut woman for it in $100 bills. He paid the money and received the car at a Connecticut shopping center, without any formal paperwork being exchanged.

Arrest and charges

Shahzad was arrested approximately 53 hours after the incident, at EDT on , 2010, by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers. He was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport, as he sat on board Emirates Flight 202 to Dubai. His flight was minutes from takeoff but was recalled to the gate. His final destination would have been Islamabad, Pakistan.

Shortly after the arrest, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said, "Based on what we know so far, it is clear that this was a terrorist plot aimed at murdering Americans in one of the busiest places in our country".

According to Deputy FBI Director John Pistole, Shahzad was initially interrogated under the public safety exception to the Miranda rule and cooperated with authorities. He was later read his Miranda rights, and continued to cooperate and provide information.

The FBI and NYPD searched Shahzad's Bridgeport, Connecticut home on , at Sheridan Street and Boston Avenue, removing filled plastic bags. charged Shahzad with five counts of terrorism-related crimes. On , Shahzad pleaded guilty to all the charges against him.

International ties and investigation It was reported that Pakistani authorities arrested a number of suspects in the investigation of the attempted car bombing, including two or three people at a house in Pakistan where Shahzad is said to have stayed. Pakistani intelligence officials said a man named Tauseef, a friend of Shahzad, was detained in Karachi in connection with the case.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Shahzad received bomb-making training from the Pakistani Taliban. The Pakistani Taliban are made up overwhelmingly of Pashtun tribesmen. According to CBS News, Shahzad has been on the Department of Homeland Security travel lookout list since 1999 because he has been bringing in large amounts of cash (approximately $80,000) into the United States.

Attorney General Holder said "the Pakistani Taliban was behind the attack. We know that they helped facilitate it. We know that they probably helped finance it and that he was working at their direction".

Shahzad told interrogators that he was "inspired by" the radical cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki, to take up the cause of al-Qaeda. Via the Internet, Shahzad contacted al-Awlaki, Baitullah Mehsud, of the Pakistan Taliban (who was killed in a drone strike in 2009); and a web of jihadists, ABC News reported.

According to a report of Al Arabiya, Shahzad had recorded a suicide video in which he declared that he planned the attack as revenge for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. In this video, made before his attempted attack, Shahzad was dressed in traditional, tribal Pashtun clothing and was sitting with an assault rifle.

Conviction

On October 5, 2010, Shahzad was convicted and sentenced by federal judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum of the Southern District of New York to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. When asked by the judge, "Didn't you swear allegiance to this country?" Shahzad, a naturalized U.S. citizen, replied, "I sweared, but I didn't mean it." Shahzad, wearing a white prayer cap, smiled and said "Allahu Akbar" after hearing his sentence. He said he would "sacrifice a thousand lives for Allah." He claimed that "War with Muslims has just begun," and that "the defeat of the US is imminent, inshallah [God willing]."

Shahzad responded to a judge asking about his justification for the bombing, saying that US drone strikes "don't see children, they don't see anybody. They kill women, children, they kill everybody." Shahzad is serving his life sentence at ADX Florence, a supermax facility in Colorado where the most dangerous male inmates in the US federal prison system are held. It is part of the Florence Federal Correctional Complex.