The first of several charges have been filed against Adis Medunjanin, 25, a Queens College graduate who allegedly traveled to Pakistan in 2008 with subway bomb suspect Najibullah Zazi. Today federal prosecutor James P. Loonam told a judge that while in Pakistan, Medunjanin attended an Al Qaeda training camp and conspired to kill American service members in Afghanistan. Loonam's office expects to seek additional charges against Medunjanin, who has not (yet) been charged with participating in Zazi's alleged subway bomb plot.
Medunjanin, who has pleaded not guilty, had been under intense scrutiny since Zazi's arrest late last year, and he was finally was arrested earlier this month after attempting to flee the FBI in a high-speed chase that ended in a crash and foot pursuit on the Whitestone Expressway. The government has released almost no details about the conspiracy alleged against Medunjanin, and his lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb, says his client was kept incommunicado for nearly two days after he was taken into custody, and any interrogation during that time was illegal.
Medunjanin's lawyer asked Judge Raymond J. Dearie to order that documents relating to his client’s detention be preserved. In response, the prosecutor insisted that "when the evidence comes forth in the proper procedural context," it will show that "the defendant’s constitutional rights were not violated in any way." A third man, Zarein Ahmedzay, 24, who also attended Flushing High School with the other defendants, has been charged with lying to F.B.I. agents about the details of his trip to Pakistan. He has pleaded not guilty.
