NEW YORK — A Pakistani immigrant was convicted yesterday of charges he plotted to blow up one of Manhattan’s busiest subway stations in retaliation for the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.
A federal jury in Brooklyn deliberated two days before convicting Shahawar Matin Siraj of conspiracy and other charges. He faces up to life in prison.
The defense had sought to portray Mr. Siraj, 23, as an impressionable simpleton who was lured into a phony plot by a paid informant eager to earn his keep. Prosecutors disputed that claim, arguing that even if it was not the defendant’s idea to bomb a subway station, no law-abiding citizen would have gone along with it.
Mr. Siraj and another man suspected in the plot, James Elshafay, were arrested on the eve of the 2004 Republican National Convention carrying crude diagrams of their target — the subway station in Herald Square, a dense shopping district that includes Macy’s flagship department store. Mr. Elshafay immediately agreed to cooperate with the government.
Fraud network busted
Although there is almost no chance they’ll recover their money, the victims of get-rich-quick schemes may take some satisfaction in the arrests of 565 swindlers who cheated them.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the arrests on Tuesday about «Operation Global Con,» a 15-month-long international fraud investigation.
Mr. Gonzales said the defendants used telemarketing, mass mailings and the Internet to cheat the victims through bogus investments, fake lotteries and sweepstakes schemes, phony credit cards and tax frauds.
Missing-girl suspect dead
MINOT, N.D. — The search for a missing 3-year-old girl resumed yesterday after the body of the man who authorities suspected took her was found following an apparent suicide.
Leigh Cowen, 22, was found Tuesday inside a van on a gravel road at Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge, Police Capt. Al Hanson said. Mr. Cowen appeared to have killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning, Capt. Hanson said.
There was no trace of Reachelle Smith, who was last seen the night of May 16 when she was put to bed at her home.
Geography Bee winner
WASHINGTON — Twelve-year-old Bonny Jain, an eight-grader from Moline, Ill., yesterday won the 2006 National Geographic Bee.
He captured the top prize of a $25,000 college scholarship by correctly locating the Cambrian Mountains, which extend across much of Wales, from the Irish Sea to the Bristol Channel.
It was Bonny’s second appearance at the national bee. Last year he came in fourth place.
Neeraj Sirdeshmukh, 14, from Nashua, N.H., came in second. He won a $15,000 college scholarship. Third-place contestant, Yeshwanth Kandimalla, 13, of Marietta, Ga., won a $10,000 college scholarship.
Also in the nation . . .
It took about three hours yesterday for a 75,000-pound excavating machine to gobble up a barn in Milford Township, Mich., as part of the FBI’s search for the remains of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa. The barn’s destruction was the most dramatic moment in the week since dozens of FBI agents descended on the horse farm 30 miles from Detroit … Calling nuclear power an overregulated industry that needs a jump-start from Washington, President Bush yesterday pitched his plan to expand nuclear power generation by dealing with radioactive waste, lessening regulations and reviving nuclear fuel processing. The backdrop for the president’s effort was the Limerick Generating Station, a nuclear plant operated by Excelon Corp. in Pottstown, Pa., about 40 miles from Philadelphia.
