Times Square Subway Station Bomber Sentenced to Life in Prison

Akayed Ullah, 31, has been sentenced to life in prison after he detonated a bomb inside the Port Authority subway station, beneath Times Square, in December 2017. Luckily, the bomb malfunctioned, and the blast didn’t seriously harm anyone other than Ullah. Federal prosecutors called his actions “one of the few completed terror attacks in New York City since 9/11.” Ullah apologized in court, saying, “I can tell you from the bottom of my heart I’m deeply sorry for what I did.” However, Judge Richard Sullivan was not having it. “Your conduct here is truly heinous. You strapped a bomb to your person. You got on the subway and you went to the most crowded subway station at the most crowded time of day,” he said. “It seems to me that a life sentence is appropriate.” Prosecutors say that Ullah was an ISIS sympathizer, and accepted a call from the extremist group to “target and kill New Yorkers.”