NY subway bomber sentenced to life in prison

The 2017 New York subway bomber was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday by a federal judge, about 2 1/2 years after he was convicted.

Akayed Ullah, 31, detonated a pipe bomb in a subway station near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in December of 2017. No people were killed or seriously injured in the attack, which came about a month after Sayfullo Saipov killed eight people in Lower Manhattan in a truck attack.

Ullah was convicted in 2018 of possessing an illegal weapon, making terroristic threats and supporting an act of terrorism.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Judge Richard J. Sullivan granted a request from federal prosecutors to impose imprisonment on Ullah. They argued during the sentencing phase that Ullah, originally from Bangladesh, wanted to cause the maximum amount of damage possible by carrying out the attack during morning rush hour at the busiest subway station in New York.

BREAKING: Port Authority bomber Akayed Ullah hit with life sentence for detonating a pipe bomb inside a tunnel under the PABT in 2017
Judge: “This was a calculated, premeditated decision to kill as many people as you could”#nbc4ny pic.twitter.com/vi4kjmPLKq

— Steven Bognar (@Bogs4NY) April 22, 2021

Ullah’s defense had argued that he should receive a reduced sentence of 35 years, saying he was trying kill himself and not others, the Times reported.

The defense wrote in court papers that Ullah “was in the middle of a major depressive episode and, regrettably, searched for and ultimately found hope on the internet in the distorted messages of the Islamic State and its radical supporters.”