Bangladesh officials want more details on Fed terror plot suspect

Bangladesh officials are seeking talks with U.S. State Department diplomats over the arrest of a Bangladeshi man on charges that he wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank building in New York, Bangladesh’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Speaking at a news conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said officials want to know details about the arrest of Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, 21. Nafis is being held on terror-related charges in New York, accused of trying to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb at the Federal Reserve.

A State Department spokeswoman in Washington said by telephone that she had no information about any meeting with Bangladesh representatives. The topic did not come up at the daily State Department media briefing.

But Moni said Bangladesh was seeking information from the State Department on Nafis and diplomats may want to meet personally with the suspect. “It is a serious matter and I will not speak until I get feedback from our U.S. mission,” she said.

Bangladesh officials have also questioned Nafis’ parents and relatives, in part to see if he had any contact “with terrorist activities and activists,” she said.

American authorities have described Nafis as a sympathizer of the terror group Al Qaeda who traveled to the United States on a student visa. He then tried to organize the attack on the Manhattan Federal Reserve, but contacted undercover FBI agents instead.

The criminal complaint alleges that Nafis traveled by van with a man he thought was co-conspirator to a New York warehouse. He then tied to detonate a 1,000-pound bomb at the Federal Reserve. The man turned out to be an undercover agent and the detonator was an inoperative cellphone. The public was never in danger, authorities said.

Nafis’ family argues that he is timid and couldn’t possibly be involved in a terrorist plot. If anything, his father told reporters this week, it is the United States that is conspiring to ensnare his son.

“My son couldn’t have done it,” Quazi Ahsanullah told reporters. “He is very gentle and devoted to his studies,” he said, pointing to Nafis’ time studying at the private North South University in Dhaka.

Ahsanullah said his son had insisted that a U.S. degree would give him a better chance at success in Bangladesh. “I spent all my savings to send him to America,” the father said.

On his student visa, Nafis traveled to Missouri, where he studied cybersecurity at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau, Mo. He also became vice president of the school’s Muslim Student Assn. and began attending a mosque. University President Kenneth Dobbins said at a news conference Thursday that Nafis was suspended because of poor academic performance. Nafis then asked that his transcripts be sent to the New York school.

Dion Duncan of St. Louis, a fellow student and member of the Muslim organization, said: “Nafis was a good kid. He showed no traces of anti-Americanism, or ‘death to America,’ or anything like that. He was a trustworthy, honest kid.”

“He was polite and courteous. He was helpful. All the things you would expect from a good Muslim kid. He prayed five times a day,” Duncan told reporters.

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