Search of Subway Bomb Plotter's Car Failed to Find Explosives

Would-be subway bomber Najibullah Zazi had two pounds of explosives in his car when he drove over the George Washington Bridge on September 10th of last year, but Port Authority police waved him through after a "cursory" inspection of the vehicle. Now the NYPD is trashing the Port Authority police over the potentially catastrophic incident, reports the Wall Street Journal in an exclusive scoop nicely timed with the debut of their Metro section today.

NYPD sources tell the Journal that "letting Mr. Zazi continue into the city was a potentially catastrophic gaffe by the Port Authority Police." The behind-the-scenes sniping between the two departments is also a sort of vindication for the NYPD, which was previously accused of blowing the FBI's cover by interviewing a Queens-based imam who worked as an NYPD informant. That imam admitted to tipping Zazi off about the investigation, but now it looks like the Port Authority's fruitless search may also have led Zazi to suspect he was under surveillance. At least that's what Ron Kuby, who's representing Imam Ahmad Wais Afzali, contends.

The FBI had trailed Zazi all the way from Colorado and notified the Port Authority of his approach. In an attempt to avoid arousing Zazi's suspicion, officials staged a random "drug checkpoint." But police did not have a warrant to search the vehicle, and one unidentified Port Authority officer maintains that they could not conduct a thorough search without tipping Zazi off, adding that "anything seized from the car in such a search would have been inadmissible in court." Well, we wouldn't want that—better to let the suspect blow some people up first.

"Either the Port Authority [Police] found the explosives and were under orders by the FBI not to seize anything," says Kuby, "or somehow they missed the explosives that they were explicitly told to search for." Zazi disposed of the explosives (triacetone triperoxide, or TATP) shortly after September 10th and returned to Colorado, where he was arrested. He pleaded guilty in February and will be sentenced June 25th.