Imam in Terror Probe Out on Bail

MYFOXNY.COM/AP - A New York City imam who is charged with lying to investigators in a terrorism investigation was freed on $1.5 million bail. Bail was set at the Brooklyn hearing for Ahmad Afzali at a hearing Thursday.

'"This is my land, this is my country, I love this place," Afzali said when he got home with his wife. His family put up the house as collateral to secure his bail.

Afzali was charged over the weekend with lying to federal officials investigating a possible plot to detonate homemade explosives.

His attorney, Ron Kuby, says the accusation is absurd.

"Why on earth would the imam lie to the FBI about the contents of a phone conversation that he knew the FBI was taping?" Kuby said outside court.

The imam--who's been a police informant in the past--would not say much about the alleged conversation that got him in trouble, but did dismiss the idea of a close relationship with the man authorities believe is at the center of a major terror investigation.

"Zazi used to come to the mosque, then he would disappear from the mosque and the last time I saw him was many years ago," he said.

He and terrorism suspect Najibullah Zazi and Zazi's father, Mohammed, all appeared at detention hearings Thursday in Denver and New York.

Prosecutors indicted the 24-year-old Zazi on Thursday with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

A federal judge in Denver has ordered the release of the father of a man charged with plotting to detonate homemade bombs.

The father, 53-year-old Mohammed Zazi is charged with lying to investigators. He has not been charged in the alleged bomb plot.

A judge said Thursday the elder Zazi can be released under court supervision until an Oct. 9 hearing.

His attorney told the judge that authorities have found a new place for Zazi to stay since he is being evicted from the suburban Denver apartment he shared with his son. The attorney didn't give the new location.

Zazi and his son, 24-year-old Najibullah Zazi were arrested Saturday at their home in the Denver suburb of Aurora.