United States authorities are investigating whether Ahmad Khan Rahami, the naturalised American citizen captured on Monday in New Jersey after a shootout with police, had accomplices in the bombings or if he picked up militant Islamic views during trips to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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Mohammad Rahami ultimately recanted his accusations during subsequent interviews with Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, The New York Times reported, and an official said Rahami made the claims out of anger at his son.
Meanwhile, Rahami’s father Mohammad Rahami said that he had told the Federal Investigation Agency (FBI) that his son is a terrorist.
Police had also linked the explosion on Saturday in Seaside Heights to Rahami, as well as two devices found in Elizabeth, New Jersey to Rahami.
Patton said his office is available to meet with Rahami in New Jersey and represent him at a telephone or video conference appearance.
The wife of suspected bomber Ahmad Khan Rahami is being sought by investigators for questioning.
Prosecutors say the document ends: “The sounds of the bombs will be heard in the streets”.
Criminal complaints in Manhattan and New Jersey federal courts provided chilling descriptions of what authorities say drove the Afghan-born USA citizen to set off explosives in NY and New Jersey, including a bomb that injured over two dozen people when it blew up on a busy Manhattan street.
All of the people injured in Saturday night’s blast in Manhattan have been released from hospitals.
Flee Jones, 27, who said he’d known Rahami since they were teenagers, told reporters he’d noticed a change in Rahami’s personality after a trip to Afghanistan in 2014.
Another law enforcement official said the father “recanted the whole story”.
Investigators were also probing Rahami’s history of travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and looking for evidence that he may have picked up radical views or trained in bomb-making.
One of the officials said Wednesday that Ahmad Khan Rahami’s wife made a statement to authorities after walking into the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates. His uncovered face was clearly captured by surveillance cameras near the spot of the blast.
ABC News reported that a dispute at the Rahami home had brought local law enforcement to the house at that time, and that a neighbor told them he’d overheard Rahami’s father calling his son a “terrorist”, according to a USA official.
With Rahami’s arrest, officials said they had no other suspects at large, but cautioned that they were still investigating.
NY officials, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, have described the bombings as an act of terror.
A New Jersey judge on Tuesday granted the woman’s request, which cited the terror investigation against Ahmad Khan Rahami.
The location of the bag was not far from where Rahami lived with his family above their fried-chicken restaurant, and his relatives have clashed with the city over closing times and noise complaints they said were tinged with anti-Muslim sentiment.
“This is a criminal, sick act and it’s an idea that is coming from overseas and spilling over into the youth and this demon rage”, said Salaam Ismial, a social worker at Masjid Al-Hadi, a mosque in Elizabeth, and who said he knew Rahami.
On the brief form, she indicated that she was requesting full custody because the “defendant has been charged with police attempted murder and is now under protective services after possible terrorist related activity in NYC”.
A woman who had a child with the man suspected of setting off bombs in NY and New Jersey has asked a court to give her full custody of their son.
MacArthur’s district includes Seaside Park, where a pipe bomb went off Saturday morning before the start of a Marine Corps 5K run/walk.
Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested for stabbing a person in the leg and possession of a firearm in 2014. A second pressure cooker bomb left in Manhattan didn’t explode and is the subject of the latest public plea. The other official said investigators believe she left the USA for Pakistan in June.
An explosion in the Chelsea neighborhood of NY on Saturday, September 17, 2016.
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Tucker reported from Washington.
