After crashing his car on the Whitestone Expressway in an apparent attempt to shake FBI agents on his tail, a Queens man connected to Najibullah Zazi's alleged subway bombing plot was arrested at a Queens hospital, where he was being treated for minor injuries. Adis Medunjanin, 25, saw federal agents "swarming" his apartment as he arrived around 3:45 p.m. yesterday, and sped off. After crashing in Whitestone, he attempted to flee the scene but was apprehended by agents.
Medunjanin's attorney, Robert C. Gottlieb, said the FBI was at his client's home with a search warrant to seize his passport, as part of an investigation into a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction. Gottlieb also told the AP late last night that he was not officially notified that Medunjanin had been arrested: "As of 1 a.m., law enforcement—both federal and state—was refusing to confirm that they had him in custody. They intentionally hid him from his lawyer and his family.''
A second man, Zarein Ahmedzay, a taxi driver, was also arrested yesterday. Ahmedzay, Medunjanin, and Zazi are all graduates of Flushing High School; the former two have been under intense scrutiny since Zazi's arrest in September. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder claims that Zazi was plotting "one of the most serious terrorist threats to our country since 9/11." In 2008 the three men traveled to Pakistan together, and Zazi, 24, admitted to F.B.I. agents in September that he had received weapons and explosives training from Al Qaeda on the trip. However, he denies any bomb plot, the Times reports.
