In this photo provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, N.Y. , Adis Medunjanin is shown. Medunjanin is on trial in New York, accused of getting terrorism training in Pakistan by al-Qaida, then returning home to plot attacks in New York. Medunjanin, along with high school classmates, Najibullah Zazi and Zarein Ahmedzay, after getting terror training at an al-Qaida outpost, discussed bombing New York City movie theaters, Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and the New York Stock Exchange before targeting the city's subways, a prosecutor said Monday, April 16, 2012. (AP Photo)
(NYDN) They were three middle-class kids from Queens, raised just a train ride from the World Trade Center.
There goes the narrative of "poor and disenfranchised".
When Al Qaeda-affiliated Adis Medunjanin arrives Monday in Brooklyn Federal Court, he will stand accused of a plot to blow up the city’s subway system on the eighth anniversary of 9/11.
His Flushing High School pals Najibullah Zazi and Zerein Ahmedzay will sit in the witness stand, ready to implicate their friend in the deadliest terrorist threat since the Twin Towers tumbled.
Prosecutors intend to illustrate the transformation of the trio from the loyal sons of hardworking immigrants to jihadists willing to sacrifice their lives as subway suicide bombers.
Bosnian-born U.S. citizen Medunjanin, 27, is the only one of the three accused plotters not to plead guilty in the case, which will be heard by an anonymous jury.
The panel includes no Muslims — but features two people who lost friends in the World Trade Center attack.
Star witnesses Ahmedzay and Zazi are among the first expected to testify for the prosecution.
While other post-9/11 terror cases were thwarted before the threats became real, the subway bombing conspiracy was operational.
The high school chums all traveled to Pakistan for terrorist training in 2008, and returned with a plot to use bombs concocted with beauty parlor chemicals, officials charge.
Zazi had purchased the bomb-making materials and the detonator when he was arrested in September 2009.
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