Two men pleaded not guilty in a New York City court Thursday to charges that they participated in a plot to bomb the city's mass transit system. The men were indicted just days after an Afghan-born immigrant pleaded guilty in the same foiled terror plot.
Federal officials charged Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay, both 25-years-old, with conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction in connection with the plot to bomb New York City subways last September.
Federal officials say the two men were accomplices of Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born airport chauffeur who pleaded guilty this week to charges he planned to use a homemade bomb to attack the subway.
New York City's Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says he believes all of the key plotters of the failed attack have now been arrested.
"We believe that this plot has been disrupted and there is no one else in this immediate plot who's at risk of conducting an attack," said Raymond Kelly. "It is a very significant case. It is 'the real deal,' as the attorney general said."
Medunjanin, who is originally from Bosnia, and Ahmedzay, an Afghan immigrant, were also charged with providing material support for al-Qaida and conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country.
According to the indictment, the attacks on the New York City subway system were planned for a Manhattan subway line on September 14th, 15th or 16th of last year. If convicted, the men face life in prison. Both maintain that they had nothing to do with the plot.
Zazi is scheduled to be sentenced on June 25. He is expected to receive life in prison without parole.
Both Medunjanin and Ahmedzay are graduates of a high school in Queens and both were living and working in New York City.