Al Qaeda NYC would be bomber' asked cops for ticket instead of arrest

New York, Nov 23 (ANI): An "Al Qaeda sympathizer" who has been charged for planning to bomb targets including police cars and postal offices in New York, used to think that being arrested was 'no big deal', and was 'surprised' when police showed up to arrest him.

Jos? Pimentel, allegedly caught building a bomb in a Harlem pad as part of a plot to kill US soldiers and their families, suggested cops give him just a slap on the wrist for the crime and set him free, the New York Post reports.

The Harlem man asked if he is 'going to get a desk-appearance ticket', before insisting, he is 'not a terrorist.'

The US authorities described the 27-year-old pot-smoking, jobless loner as a deadly threat who, driven by a radical Muslim ideology, was hellbent on killing New York police officials and military personnel returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the report, Pimentel was "surprised" when cops came to arrest him on Saturday at an informant's apartment, where he was allegedly found wearing latex gloves and piecing together a pipe-bomb.

Pimentel, also known as Muhammad Yusuf, allegedly told police he planned to explode the device as a "test" to see whether it worked.

Meanwhile, his mother Carmen Rosa, with whom he lived, apologized for her malcontent Muslim son, and said he has to face "justice."

"I want to apologize to the City of New York. I've been here since 1987, and I'm disappointed with what my son was doing. I love New York," she said.

"I'm sorry for what my son did. I just want to say I love him. I didn't raise him that way, he changed," she added. (ANI)