Prosecutors won’t use statement from suspect in bombing case
NEW YORK — A federal prosecutor on Monday said the government won’t introduce at trial a lengthy statement from a man charged with setting off bombs in New York and New Jersey in order to keep to a scheduled trial date in March.
The New York Times (http://nyti.ms/2hkwwdO) reports Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Lewin told a judge that his office wanted “both on the government’s behalf and the public’s behalf a speedy trial in this matter.”
The defendant, Ahmad Khan Rahimi, pleaded not guilty in an indictment charging him in the Sept. 17 attacks, which included the detonation of a bomb in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighbourhood that injured 30 people. Another bomb did not explode.
Lewin told U.S. District Court Judge Richard Berman that Rahimi made a statement to law enforcement over several days. He said the statement was “taken lawfully” under the public-safety exception to the Miranda rule. The exception allows authorities to question a suspect in certain situations before the suspect is represented by a lawyer if public safety is at stake.