THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING

Would-be bomber got cash in Mass.

Details unclear on exchange, Taliban link

By Shelley Murphy and Martin Finucane
Globe Staff / June 23, 2010

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Two months before Faisal Shahzad tried to set off a car bomb in busy Times Square in New York City, he came to Massachusetts to pick up $5,000 in cash sent by a member of the Pakistani Taliban. But just how that transaction occurred is still unclear.

Shahzad acknowledged the trip while pleading guilty Monday in US District Court in Manhattan to attempting the botched attack on May 1.

Yesterday, authorities would not provide details about the cash delivery, which was mentioned in a 10-count indictment handed down against Shahzad by a grand jury last week. Nor would officials comment on whether two Watertown men arrested on immigration charges as part of the investigation are suspected — knowingly or not — of serving as cash couriers from the Taliban to Shahzad.

But a lawyer for the two detained men, Pir D. Khan, a 43-year-old taxi driver, and his cousin, Aftab Ali Khan, 27, who shared an apartment in Watertown, said they both deny any connection to Shahzad or the Ta liban.

“They disapproved of that act,’’ said Saher J. Macarius, a Framingham lawyer who represents the Khans on immigration charges, referring to the attempted Times Square bombing.

Macarius said he asked the Khans if they gave Shahzad money without realizing what it was for, and both said they did not handle money for him.

“They insisted that they have no connection with Faisal,’’ Macarius said.

Aftab Khan was given a court-appointed lawyer in federal court in New York earlier this month because, according to Macarius, prosecutors planned to call him to testify before the federal grand jury in New York that was investigating the attempted bombing. Macarius said he did not know if Aftab Khan had testified but noted he has not been charged with any crime.

Macarius added, “If he was considered one of the people involved in a crime like this, they would not have called him as a witness.’’

Shahzad, 30, of Bridgeport, Conn., admitted in court Monday that after receiving bomb-making training from the Taliban in Pakistan, he returned to the United States in February with $12,000 and a plan to carry out terrorist attacks on American soil.

But he quickly ran out of money, according to the indictment, so on Feb. 25 Shahzad traveled to Massachusetts to collect $5,000 sent by an unidentified accomplice who worked for Tehrik-e-Taliban. The indictment does not describe the money transfer. Then, on April 10, Shahzad picked up another $7,000 in Ronkonkoma, N.Y., that had been sent at the direction of the same accomplice.

Shahzad was arrested two days after the car bomb failed to go off, and he began cooperating. The Khan cousins and third man, Mohammad Shafiq Rahman, a 33-year-old computer programmer from South Portland, Maine, were arrested on May 13 during raids that were conducted as part of the investigation. None of the three has been charged criminally, but all remain held on alleged immigration violations.

Rahman is scheduled to appear in US Immigration Court in Boston today for a hearing on his request to be allowed to stay in the United States because he recently married an American citizen.

Pir Khan is being held at the Plymouth County jail, pending an immigration hearing in August.

After the three men were arrested in New England, government officials said that they might have handled informal money transfers for Shahzad but that it was unclear whether they knew the funds would be used for a terrorist attack.

A lawyer for US Customs and Immigration Enforcement alleged during a hearing last month that Aftab Khan had Shahzad’s cellphone number stored in his cellphone and written on an envelope found in the Watertown apartment.

On May 27, an immigration judge in Boston ordered Aftab Khan deported to Pakistan, but he remains in custody at a jail in New York City.

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