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Two Queens Women Considered Bombing NYPD Funeral, Prosecutors Say

By  Janon Fisher Aidan Gardiner and Gwynne Hogan | April 2, 2015 12:19pm | Updated on April 2, 2015 6:20pm

 Two women were charged with a plot to kill US citizens with homemade explosives and considered hitting a police funeral after the deaths of officers Rafael Ramos and Wenjian Liu.
Queens Women Terror Arraignment
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NEW YORK CITY — Two Queens women were charged in connection with an al-Qaida-inspired terrorism plot to kill people with homemade explosives — and considered bombing a police funeral after the deaths of two Brooklyn NYPD officers, federal officials said.

The women, Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, who went by the aliases Najma Samaa and Murdiyyah respectively, were arrested Thursday morning as part of an undercover investigation dating back to May 2013, prosecutors said.

The pair are both United States citizens who lived in Queens, and until recently were roommates, according to court papers. Siddiqui had multiple propane gas tanks, bomb-making chemicals and instructions on how to use them as explosive devices, prosecutors said.

The duo discussed various targets with the undercover informant including the Herald Square subway station and a police funeral after watching the massive gathering of law enforcement personnel at the memorial service for NYPD Officer Rafael Ramos, who was murdered with his partner Wenjian Liu, prosecutors said.

Velentzas seemed to think twice about the targets because there were "just regular people" there.

On Oct. 26, Velentzas pulled a knife from her bra to then demonstrate how to stab someone before turning to Siddiqui, prosecutors said.

"Why we can't be some real bad b----es?" Velentzas asked.

Siddqui/Velentzas Terror Complaint

They repeatedly contacted the terrorist organization al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, prosecutors said.

An undercover officer first met Velentzas in 2013, prosecutors said. During those first conversations, the suspected terrorist praised the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and said that becoming a martyr through a suicide attack guarantees her a way into heaven, according to federal investigators.

She also idolized Osama bin Laden, prosecutors said.

The two women had been researching pressure cookers since those devices were used in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, according to the U.S. Attoney's office.

Velentzas joked with the undercover officer that the pressure cooker she recently got as a gift had uses other than food preparation, prosecutors said.

"You can fit a lot of things in [the pressure cooker], even if it's not food," she said, according to prosecutors.

Siddiqui also bragged to the undercover officer about her accomplishments as a poet, prosecutors said.

She said she sent a poem to a prominent al-Qaida official who then published it and made it popular, according to federal officials.

She published a poem in a jihadist magazine in 2009 titled, "Take Me to the Lands Where the Eyes Are Cooled," prosecutors said.

She said that she "drop[s] bombs" as she swings from a hammock and hits "cloud nine with the smell of turpentine, nations wiped clean of filthy shrines," prosecutors said.

She added that she "taste[s] the Truth through fists and slit throats" and that there is no "excuse to sit back and wait — for the skies rain martyrdom," prosecutors said.

Last November, Velentzas showed the informant a bag Miracle Gro, which she explained contained potassium, magnesium and ammonium nitrate. She asked the undercover to buy her a bottle potassium gluconate from a Queens pharmacy.

As recently as March 22, the undercover informant recorded both women watching bomb making videos on Velentzas' cellphone.

Velentzas wore a black hijab and her eyes darted across the courtroom during their arraignment.

Her lawyer, Sean Maher, asked that Velentzas receive medical treatment when she was taken to Rikers Island, but wouldn't specify what condition she had.  

Siddiqui had dark, frizzy hair, glasses and wore a green Polo T-shirt with a black undershirt. She gasped as she walked into the packed courtroom and then turned to face her lawyer. 

"She and I will address everything in the courtroom where it belongs," said Siddiqui's lawyer, Thomas Dunn. "We're going to fight this in court."

Both women attended Masjid Al-Hamdulillah mosque on Sutphin Boulevard for about five years, their imam, Charles Aziz Bilal told DNAinfo. 

"They were very family oriented," Bilal said about Velentzas, who he added was married and has a 5-year-old daughter. "I don’t have anything negative to say about this family because they have not done anything that I know of."

The imam said he was also not aware of Siddiqui taking part in anything illegal. 

"She has been an outstanding member here.”

He added that the community believes the charges "are false." 

"The government had accused people of crimes and at the end of the day they were innocent,” he said.

— Additional reporting by Ewa Kern-Jedrychowska and Ben Fractenberg.