A man who set off a faulty pipe bomb attached to his chest in a tunnel at a Times Square subway station in December 2017 was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday.
Akayed Ullah was sentenced in Manhattan federal court Thursday morning.
Ullah, 31, was convicted in November 2018, a little less than a year after the failed suicide bombing beneath Times Square and the Port Authority bus terminal.
He was arrested after his bomb failed to fully explode, leaving him with serious burns. The blast—caught on surveillance video—spread panic but caused only minor injuries to those near him.
Prosecutors said he committed the attack on behalf of the Islamic State group.
Prosecutors called a life sentence “necessary and appropriate to reflect the abhorrent nature and extreme seriousness of Ullah’s terrorist bombing.”
Lawyers for Ullah had argued that a mandatory 35-year prison term is punishment enough because his attack was an aberration from an otherwise peaceful life.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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