NEW YORK, NY May 10, 2006 —A man who has pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up Herald Square subway station has testified against his alleged co-conspirator in federal court in Brooklyn.

21-year-old James Elshafay told a jury about his troubled upbringing, which included an absent father, sexual abuse by an uncle and dropping out of school in 9th grade. He slowly grew more interested in the Muslim faith, though he has also explored Christianity and Judaism, and he met the defendant, Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Matin Siraj, at an Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

Elshafay said he and Siraj began discussing what was wrong with American policies in the Middle East and what they should do about it as Muslims. The two men initially planned to blow up the Verrazanno and other Staten Island bridges, but working with a third man - a paid informant hired by the NYPD - they decided instead to blow up the Herald Square subway station and Macy's.

The defense contends that the informant, a middle-aged Egyptian immigrant, manipulated the two impressionable young men into the bomb plot. Elshafay both helped and contradicted this assertion, saying he had made up his mind by himself, but also received and believed guidance from the informant that killing Americans was, quote, "Islamically obligatory."