Surveillance video obtained exclusively by NBC 4 NY shows the moments before suspected NY and New Jersey bomber Ahmad Rahami dumped luggage containing a pressure-cooker bomb on a Manhattan street Saturday night, authorities say.
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Before these federal charges were filed, Rahami was already being held on $5.2 million (£4 million) bail, charged with attempted murder of police officers during the shoot-out in New Jersey on Monday.
The man accused of setting off explosions around NY, including one that injured 31 people, has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing public places, U.S. officials say.
A still image captured from a video from WABC television shows NY bombing suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami being loaded into an ambulance after a shoot-out with police in Linden, New Jersey, Sept. 19, 2016. A gun battle ensued, with Rahami getting shot in the leg and taken into custody.
According to Jim Waters, the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism bureau chief, the men picked up a piece of luggage that was left on the streets of New York this past weekend. “Death to your oppression”.
The documents said 31 people were injured in the Chelsea bombing, and only one of three pipe bombs were detonated in the Seaside Park bombing.
After capturing the bombings suspect this Monday, police officers found a notebook which could provide some essential details about Rahami’s past. Rahami underwent surgery on his wounds and remains in hospital.
“The investigation is active and ongoing, and it is being investigated as an act of terror”, US Attorney-General Loretta Lynch said in Lexington, Kentucky.
In court papers, a public defender sought a court appearance for Rahami, an Afghan-born US citizen, so he can hear the federal terrorism charges against him.
Police suspect Rahami was also behind a bomb that exploded in New Jersey on Saturday, a device found near the NY blast, and up to six more devices found near a train station.
A handwritten manual recovered from him after his arrest on Monday includes writings criticizing the U.S. government for the “slaughter” of Muslim fighters in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere, it adds.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was convicted a year ago 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.
Other passages lauded Osama bin Laden, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, and former al-Qaeda propagandist Anwar al-Awlaki.
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Video found on a family member’s mobile phone dated two days before the bombings showed Rahami lighting a fuse and igniting incendiary material packed in a partially buried cylinder.
