The man accused of carrying out a bomb attack in New York City's subway system was influenced by the sermons and writings of a radical Muslim preacher, Bangladeshi officials say.
Akayed Ullah had asked his wife in Bangladesh to read the writings and listen to the sermons of Moulana Jasimuddin Rahmani, the currently-imprisoned leader of a banned group called Ansarullah Bangla Team, according to Monirul Islam, of Bangladesh's counterterrorism department.
The group has been linked to killings and attacks on secular academics and atheist bloggers in Bangladesh. Rahmani is in prison for his involvement in the killings.
Ullah's wife, questioned in Bangladesh, told police her husband discussed Rahman's writings with her during his last visit home, Islam said.
Ullah, 27, was expected to make his first court appearance in New York on Wednesday, where he is in a hospital being treated for injuries sustained from a pipe bomb he detonated in a pedestrian tunnel linking two busy subway stations.
Prosecutors said that after his capture, Ullah told interrogators he was on a mission to punish the US for attacking the Islamic State group.
Investigators found bomb-making materials in his apartment and said he had researched how to build a bomb a year ago and had planned his mission for several weeks.
He was charged with providing material support to a terrorist group, use of a weapon of mass destruction and three bomb-related counts. He could get up to life in prison.
Relatives and police said Ullah last visited his wife and new-born son in Bangladesh in September, after which he returned to the United States.
