US bomb plot accused Zazi denies charges India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan-born man charged with plotting to carry out bomb attacks on the US, has pleaded not guilty in a New York court. Prosecutors accused the 24-year-old Colorado resident of buying large quantities of bomb-making chemicals. They say Zazi had explosives training in Pakistan and may have been planning an attack on New York commuters. "The conspiracy here is international in scope," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Knox told a federal judge. Knox told the court that the case was going to be complex and that a voluminous amount of evidence would be presented at the upcoming trial, CBS News reports. Zazi, an airport van driver, has denied any wrongdoing, the BBC reports. His lawyer, Michael Dowling, entered the plea on his behalf in the court in Brooklyn. "You get the impression he's a nice guy, don't you?" Dowling told reporters. Dowling admitted that his client visited Pakistan last year, and made purchases earlier this year at a beauty supply shop in the Denver suburb of Aurora, Colorado. But he added, "Those acts are not illegal" and cautioned against a rush to judgment. Asked about possible accomplices, the lawyer said, "I don't know the names of anybody else that allegedly conspired with Zazi. ... Those names have not been produced." Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly refused on Tuesday to discuss the potential of other plotters at large, but insisted there was no threat to the city.