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Would-Be Subway Bomber Najibullah Zazi 'Provided Critical Intelligence' On Al Qaeda, Filing Reveals

(CNN) -- Nearly 10 years ago, Najibullah Zazi pleaded guilty to plotting to bomb the New York City subway system. Since then, the al Qaeda-linked defendant has transformed from a would-be terrorist into a highly valuable government witness, providing "extraordinary cooperation" to US investigators, prosecutors disclosed as Zazi is set to be sentenced Thursday in Brooklyn federal court.

Though Zazi's status as a cooperator had been made public, documents filed in court Wednesday marked the first time prosecutors described the extent of his assistance.

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Convicted failed terror plot bomber Najibullah Zazi in FBI tapes (credit: CBS)

Zazi, an Afghanistan native who was living in Colorado, pleaded guilty in 2010 to three charges connected to a plot to bomb the subway around the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

He agreed several months after he was charged to cooperate with the government, and since then, his assistance has included meeting with the government more than 100 times, prosecutors said in their sentencing submission.

Zazi, they wrote, "provided critical intelligence and unique insight regarding al-Qaeda and its members, provided information that led to terrorism charges against numerous individuals, and testified as a witness in two terrorism trials in the Eastern District of New York, leading to successful criminal prosecutions and convictions."

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Mohammed Zazi arrives at U.S. District Court in Denver on Oct. 9, 2009 in Denver. (credit: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

Prosecutors also credited Zazi with having reviewed hundreds of photographs and "providing information that assisted law enforcement officials in a number of different investigations even where Zazi did not personally know the subjects of those investigations."

Zazi, they wrote, cooperated "at great personal cost to himself and his family," and his help to investigators "came in the face of substantial potential danger" in the form of potential retaliation by al Qaeda.

While testifying against one of Zazi's co-conspirators, Adis Medunjanin, Zazi "broke down in tears," prosecutors noted, "reflecting the difficulty Zazi had testifying against a close friend."

Zazi pleaded guilty to conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support to a terrorist organization.

He faces a maximum term of life imprisonment, but his cooperation could merit him a lighter sentence. In its submission, the government didn't make a recommendation for a specific sentence, but suggested Zazi should be given credit for his "extraordinary" assistance.

Zazi was arrested in September 2009 after having driven to New York with materials to build bombs.

In the years prior, he had traveled to Pakistan and "conspired with others to join the Taliban, to fight along with the Taliban against the United States," Zazi said at his guilty plea in 2010. "We were recruited to al Qaeda instead." According to prosecutors, Zazi and two others had gone to Pakistan "to wage jihad (violent struggle) against American and coalition forces in Afghanistan."

At a terrorist training camp in northwest Pakistan's Waziristan region along the Afghan border, Zazi "had discussions with al Qaeda about targets including the New York City subway system," he disclosed during his plea proceeding.

He had learned how to make explosives at the camp, he said at the time, and had emailed himself bombmaking instructions to use once he returned to the United States. He took several trips to New York for planning purposes before making the final trip from Denver on September 10, 2009, to carry out the plot, according to statements he made at his plea.

But Zazi, who had been under surveillance by federal authorities for months before his arrest, wasn't alone. Agents had followed him as he drove from Denver to New York. After Zazi arrived, he and his co-conspirators realized they were being investigated, and threw away their bombmaking materials.

In their sentencing submission, prosecutors gave Zazi credit for encouraging his father, Mohammed Wali Zazi, who was indicted on charges connected to the subway bombing plot, to "accept responsibility and plead guilty for his actions." (His father instead went to trial, where he was convicted on two counts and later pleaded guilty to a third.)

The US attorney general at the time of the foiled plot, Eric Holder, said upon Zazi's arrest that "there is no doubt that American lives were saved."

By Erica Orden, CNN

The-CNN-Wire
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