PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The son of a prominent Philadelphia criminal defense attorney was found guilty Wednesday of attempting to build weapons of mass destruction and targeting events and sites across the region.
A jury convicted Muhyyee-ud-din Abdul-Rahman, 19, for building and possessing explosives and for plotting potential attacks. Authorities said his intended targets included the Philadelphia Pride Parade, the Army-Navy football game, Valley Forge Military Academy and College, and nuclear power plants in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Officials said he was attempting to create TATP, a highly volatile and destructive explosive.
District Attorney Larry Krasner described Abdul-Rahman’s plan.
“ We are not writing fiction here. We are talking about a young man in a residential neighborhood whose bedroom had an ISIS symbol on the outside of the door who lived in a house that was full of firearms, and I mean dozens of firearms, and he wanted to become a bomb maker for a terrorist group in Syria, that's what we are talking about,” Krasner said.
He continued to explain that the defendant made about 8,000 internet searches for things like- U.S. energy, infrastructure, chemicals, drones, explosives, and shipping of firearms. The top search, according to Krasner, was on the Philadelphia Pride parade.
Abdul-Rahman is the son of criminal lawyer Qawi Abdul Rahman. The defendant was 17 years old when he was arrested in August 2023.
He faces 48 years in prison at sentencing.