Chelsea bomber Ahmad Rahimi was sentenced Tuesday to multiple terms of life in prison for setting off a shrapnel-packed explosive that injured 30 people.
The 30-year-old terrorist delivered a rambling and remorseless diatribe before Manhattan Federal Court Judge Richard Berman slapped him with two life terms plus 30 years.
“One thing a life sentence does is to make sure you don’t do it again,” Berman said.
Rahimi was found guilty on eight counts — including using a weapon of mass destruction and bombing a public place — Oct. 16 after a two-week trial.
The jurors weighing Rahimi’s case convicted him after less than four hours of deliberations. The verdict resulted in a mandatory life sentence.
“Inspired by ISIS and al-Qaida, Rahimi planted and detonated bombs on the streets of Chelsea, in the heart of Manhattan … hoping to kill and maim as many innocent people as possible,” former acting Manhattan U.S. Attorney Joon Kim said after the verdict.
“Just over a year after his attacks, and following a fair and open trial, Rahimi now stands convicted of his crimes of terror by a unanimous jury of New Yorkers.”
Rahimi, a fried chicken shop worker turned ISIS acolyte, brought two pressure cooker bombs from New Jersey to Manhattan on Sept. 17, 2016, planting them on West 23rd and West 27th streets, officials said.
The first explosive, hidden near a dumpster, set off a blast that threw the giant trash bin 120 feet and discharged hundreds of ball bearings and steel nuts that sliced through nearby pedestrians’ faces and legs.
The device four blocks north failed to explode.
Rahimi also detonated a bomb at a charity 5K race in Seaside Park, N.J., earlier that morning — but no one was hurt.
The day after the Chelsea bombing, two men walking by the N.J. Transit station in Elizabeth found a knapsack containing more pipe bombs built by Rahimi.
Authorities shut down the station, evacuated the terminal and briefly suspended service in and out of Elizabeth.
In recent court papers, prosecutors painted Rahimi as a remorseless terrorist who was basking in his newfound infamy.
“(Another inmate) asked me how are we going to watch the news and I told him I don’t need to watch the news because I am the news,” Rahimi allegedly told a family member in a jailhouse phone call, while he was on trial.
Rahimi even laughed during the conversation, prosecutors claimed.
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