Zazi's father guilty in bomb plot cover-up

A Brooklyn federal jury on Friday convicted the father of New York City subway bomb plotter Najibullah Zazi of cover-up charges for orchestrating the destruction of bomb-making chemicals and lying to investigators in 2009.

Mohammed Wali Zazi, 55, a former taxi driver from Queens, will face up to 20 years in prison on each of two counts after jurors convicted him of conspiracy to obstruct justice and obstruction of justice on their second day of deliberations in Brooklyn federal court.

Prosecutors called it a victory against terrorism. "This defendant sought to conceal one of the most violent terror plots in recent times," said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. "His actions, had they not been thwarted, would have left Americans at grave risk."

But Zazi, who remained free to return to his Denver home until his Dec. 2 sentencing, said "I am innocent" as he left court. His lawyers said they would try to reverse the verdict.

After being caught in September 2009, Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty last year to plotting subway suicide bombings with two Queens friends after a visit to al-Qaida camps in Pakistan in 2008. He is now cooperating with the government.

Though prosecutors cast the father's trial as a terrorism case, it also served to illustrate how an immigrant family's pursuit of the American dream was undercut by a son who strayed.

Mohammed Zazi, a U.S. citizen who came from Pakistan in 1990, was never accused of knowing about the bomb plot. But prosecutors alleged that when he was told that Najibullah had stored chemicals in the garage of a panicked brother-in-law, he signed off on a plan to have his wife, sister-in-law and nephew destroy the items.

He was also charged with two lies. A Queens imam who doubled as an NYPD informant tipped him off about the probe in 2009, but Zazi told the FBI he didn't know the imam. Also, he had described nephew Amanullah Zazi as a son in 1999 to get him into the United States, and continued to describe him as a son when speaking to the FBI in 2009.

The two key witnesses at trial were both family members who had entered into plea deals. Naqib Jaji, the brother-in-law with the chemicals, faces up to 20 years. Amanullah, the nephew, faces up to 30 years for helping cousin Najibullah contact al-Qaida in Pakistan. Mohammed cried during his testimony.

Defense lawyers argued that both men were lying to save their own skin, and that the government was persecuting the father for what the son had done.

Jurors declined to comment on their verdict.