Nafis jailed for 30yrs

A Bangladeshi man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison on Friday for plotting to bomb the US Federal Reserve in New York last year.
Quazi Mohammed Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 22, apologised to a judge, to his parents and to the city of New York before the sentence was handed down, reports BBC.
Meanwhile, his father Quazi Ahsanullah in Bangladesh yesterday sought diplomatic support and assistance for Nafis' release.
Bangladesh foreign ministry officials, however, made it clear that the ministry or the embassy had no scope to make any diplomatic move for his release or reduce his punishment as the issue is under the US court's jurisdiction.
The US law or Geneva Convention does not permit any diplomatic move in this respect, the officials told The Daily Star.
Last year, Nafis, then 21, took dummy explosives to the central bank branch and tried to set them off using a mobile phone.
In February, he pleaded guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and to supporting al-Qaeda.
However, he subsequently told the court he had rejected radical Islam. In a five-page letter to the federal judge, he said "I'm ashamed. I'm lost … I tried to do a terrible thing. I alone am responsible for what I've done. Please forgive me."
"I'm really grateful that the agents saved me. I apologise to you, your honour. I apologise to the people of America, I apologise to the people of New York, especially," he added.
The US District Court Judge Carol Amon handed down the sentence.
Nafis entered the US on a student visa in January 2012 where, according to prosecutors, he sought out al-Qaeda contacts in hopes of setting up a terrorist cell, reports AFP.
One of the individuals he tried to recruit was in fact an informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), which together with New York police put Nafis under tight surveillance.
Prosecutors said he proposed several targets, including a high-ranking US official and the New York Stock Exchange, before settling on the Federal Reserve building that holds one of the world's biggest reserves of gold.
Posing as an al-Qaeda middleman, an FBI undercover agent set Nafis up with explosives to use in the purported attack -- unaware that the suspect's every word was being recorded as evidence against him.
On October 17, Nafis met the agent, travelled in a van to a warehouse, and finalised what he thought was a working 1,000 pound bomb that he armed on the drive to the intended target on busy Liberty Street.
Parking the van outside the Federal Reserve, Nafis walked to a hotel with the FBI agent, recorded a video claim of responsibility, then tried -- unsuccessfully -- to detonate the bomb with a cellphone.
It was at that instant that police arrested him.
"Nafis's goals of martyrdom and carnage were thwarted by the vigilance of law enforcement. He will now spend the next 30 years where his own actions have landed him -- in a federal prison cell," said US district attorney Loretta Lynch.
When he was arrested in October last year, Nafis was described by his family in Dhaka as the only son of a senior bank executive who had dropped out of Bangladesh's most liberal university.
However, his family members could not be contacted over the phone yesterday.
Official sources said Nafis's father Ahsanullah yesterday met Mahfuzur Rahman, director general (Americas wing) of the foreign ministry, and requested him whether it was possible to take any diplomatic measure in favour of his son.
As per the US law, it is Nafis who only has the right to seek clemency or appeal to higher court, Mahfuzur told Ahsanullah.
Foreign ministry sources said Bangladesh embassy officials in Washington met thrice with Nafis since his arrest. But he did not cooperate with them.
Last time, he talked with the officials only for five minutes and left.