An “al-Qaida sympathizer” has been accused of numerous terrorism-related charges, with plots to bomb police and post offices in New York City. 27-year-old Jose Pimentel was arrested Sunday a mere hour before he would have finished his first bomb. “He was in fact putting this bomb together,” Kelly said. “He was drilling holes and it would have been not appropriate for us to let him walk out the door with that bomb,” Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said.
Authorities have no evidence that Pimentel was working with anyone else. He had been under surveillance for about a year thanks to a confidential informant. Pimentel was motivated by terrorist propaganda, and had even considered changing his name to Osama Hussein. Police made the move to arrest him when his behavior changed from talking about potential action to actually building his bomb.
