Rahami’s father says he told Federal Bureau of Investigation that son had ‘become bad’

“They’re not in any jeopardy of being arrested”, Jim Watters, chief of the New York Police Department’s counterterrorism unit, said on Wednesday.

Ahmad Khan Rahami faces federal charges, including of using weapons of mass destruction, in connection with explosives left at a military charity race in Seaside Park, Elizabeth and Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. Another bomb went off in NY, injuring 29.

A pair of ethnic Chechen brothers killed three people and injured more than 260 others at the Boston Marathon in 2013 with homemade pressure-cooker bombs similar to those used in this weekend’s attacks.

Sources tell Eyewitness News that Ahmad Khan Rahami rode a train into Manhattan and placed the pressure cookers in Chelsea while possibly carrying the pipe bombs in his backpack. The two men are being sought as witnesses. “They said, ‘Is he a terrorist?’ I said: ‘I don’t know”. “If anyone kills a non-Muslim citizen, paradise will be done for him”. The federal complaint alleges that event took place two days before the bombings in New Jersey and NY, and describes how laughter is heard on the video before Rahami returns into the frame and is seen picking up the object.

The judge noted that court rules require an arrested person be brought before the court “without unnecessary delay”.

When Ahmad Rahami was arrested, prosecutors said he was carrying a journal that praised Osama bin Laden and other Muslim extremists, fumed about what he saw as the US government’s killing of Muslim holy warriors and declared, “Death to your oppression”. They are not in custody and are not being taken anywhere by law enforcement.

“In fact, this question is very much in dispute”, Gorenstein wrote.

Rahami remains in a New Jersey hospital after taking part in a shootout with police Monday morning in the city of Linden, NJ. He has been charged with a litany of crimes related to the bombings, in addition to attempted murder charges for allegedly opening fire on police Monday just before he was apprehended.

David Patton, the head of the federal public defenders office in NY asked on Wednesday to be appointed as Rahami’s attorney and asked to be allowed to meet with him, saying he has not had the advice of a lawyer thus far.

A journal that officials say was found on Rahami contained anti-American writings and praise for well-known terrorist figures, including al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, American-born al-Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. He wrote “Death to your oppression”. A senior law enforcement official said the woman, Asia Bibi Rahami, has been cooperative “to a certain degree”. The other official said investigators believe she left the US for Pakistan in June.

But in interviews with agents, Mohammed Rahami “at no time” discussed his son’s radicalization or potential interest in al-Qaeda, the Taliban or their propaganda, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss the case by name and spoke on the condition of anonymity. But he said if there are gaps in coverage, the state would pay for anything left outstanding from its emergency funds.

The video shows multiple passersby walk past the plastic bag containing the bomb before the authorities were alerted.

“I don’t like to think about what could have happened, but I’m just so blessed and glad it didn’t”, Lee Parker said.