NEW YORK - Claims that an Afghan immigrant was on the verge of unleashing a terrorist attack on New York City on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 are missing a key element: explosives or the chemicals allegedly used to make them, the man's attorney said. FBI agents have yet to find those elements and connect them to Najibullah Zazi, charged with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in a plot authorities say was aimed at commuter trains, attorney Arthur Folsom told a federal judge in Denver Friday.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer ultimately ordered Zazi's transfer to New York, and Zazi was taken there by federal marshals.
"No traces of any kind of chemical was found in his vehicle," Folsom said of an FBI search of Zazi's car.
A federal prosecutor argued that Zazi was planning an attack to coincide with the 9/11 anniversary.
"The evidence suggests a chilling, disturbing sequence of events showing the defendant was intent on making a bomb and being in New York on 9/11, for purposes of perhaps using such items," prosecutor Tim Neff told Shaffer.
Zazi was stopped by police on Sept. 10 as he entered New York, and he dropped his plans for an attack once he realized that law enforcement was on to him, prosecutors allege.
He was sent to New York on Friday by federal marshals to face charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.
Prosecutors said Zazi received explosives training from al-Qaida in Pakistan and returned to the U.S. bent on building a bomb.