The FBI had released his name and mugshot, setting off an intensive manhunt.
Advertisement
“A lot of technology involved in this, but a lot of good, old-fashioned police work, too”, New York Police Commissioner James O’Neill said Monday. But so far he has not spoken to interrogators.
Rahami was charged with five counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, second-degree unlawful possession of a weapon and second-degree possession of a weapon for an unlawful goal on Monday, according to the Union County, New Jersey Prosecutor’s office.
Investigators are looking into Rahami’s overseas travel, including a visit to Pakistan a few years ago, and want to know whether he received any money or training from extremist organizations.
Police are still investigating the motives behind Saturday’s bombings in the NY neighborhood of Chelsea, which injured 29 people, and a pipe blast at a US Marine Corps race on the Jersey shore.
“It’s not that hard to go on the internet, find out what explosive compounds are out there, where they’re available – either through internet order or retail stores” and then create them on your own, said John Cohen, a top former counterterrorism official at the Department of Homeland Security.
One bloodstained page contained references to both Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric who was killed in a 2011 drone strike and whose preaching has inspired other acts of violence, and Nidal Hasan, the former Army officer who went on a deadly shooting rampage in 2009 at Fort Hood, Texas.
“He’s OK, he’s clean, he’s not a terrorist”, Rahami’s father told American newspaper “The New York Times”, referring to the FBI’s outcome two years ago.
Ahmad Khan Rahami was arrested in 2014 on charges of stabbing a person in the leg and possession of a firearm.
He reportedly spent three months in jail but was never prosecuted. He also was accused of violating a domestic-violence restraining order in 2012.
Citing the FBI, New Jersey State Police said Monday that the bombings in Chelsea and the New Jersey shore town Seaside Park were connected.
The electronic wanted alert meant the citizens in homes, subways, sidewalks and offices across NY were now part of a massive drive to nab the person wanted for placing bombs, including a pressure cooker that did not detonate, on the busy and crowded streets of Manhattan on a Saturday evening. At the same time, five people who were pulled over in a vehicle Sunday night were being questioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, officials said.
Sires said his office wrote a letter to the United States embassy in Pakistan to check on the status of the case and that the woman eventually received a visa.
Rahami was flagged in the FBI’s Guardian system, a general database of tips and reports of suspicious activity, in 2014, the official said.
A photo of Rahami, published in the Edison High School yearbook when he graduated in 2007, shows him with a carefully groomed goatee, wearing a crimson vest and tie.
The woman complained to Fox that he failed to pay child support.
Advertisement
Rahami, of Elizabeth, New Jersey, is a naturalized USA citizen, according to New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. The suit was settled in favor of the city. Harinder Bains, owner of Merdie’s Tavern, recognized Rahami after watching CNN on his laptop and called police.
