A federal appeals court threw out the ISIS material support conviction of the man who detonated a pipe bomb inside a New York City subway passage in 2017, ruling that consuming terrorist propaganda online does not amount to working under a terror group’s control.
The Second Circuit voted 2-1 on Tuesday to reverse that single count against Akayed Ullah. The court left his remaining convictions intact, including for carrying out a terrorist attack on a mass transit system, the New York Times (NYT) reported. Ullah strapped a homemade explosive to his body and set it off during the morning commute on Dec. 11, 2017, in a corridor between the Times Square and Port Authority stations.
Ullah told a detective at the hospital that he acted on behalf of ISIS and had watched the group’s propaganda videos on YouTube, according to the NYT. Investigators found an ISIS slogan written across his visa, passport and bomb-making materials. (RELATED: Old Dominion Shooter Far From The Only ISIS Lover Courts Let Off Easy)
Ullah built the device as a suicide bomb, but it largely failed because of a construction flaw, the Associated Press (AP) reported. One bystander lost 70% of his hearing in the blast. Ullah received a life sentence in 2021 and remains in prison.
A terrorism conviction against the man serving life in prison for setting off a pipe bomb in the New York City subway was overturned by a federal appeals court in Manhattan. https://t.co/WqgcVX5R6X
— CBS New York (@CBSNewYork) April 24, 2026
Judge Myrna Pérez, who penned the majority opinion, acknowledged ISIS drove Ullah’s attack but found that online radicalization alone fell short of the statute’s requirement that a defendant act under a foreign group’s direction or control, the NYT reported.
Trump-appointed Judge Steven Menashi pushed back in dissent. “That is wrong,” Menashi wrote, arguing the majority had distorted the material support statute and disregarded evidence the jury considered, according to the AP.
The decision threatens a prosecutorial tool used for decades, specifically regarding cases where the terrorism suspect did not communicate directly with foreign groups. Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy told the Times that prosecutors “are going to be concerned that an important tool will be taken off the table.”
The ruling also looms over two men charged with material support to ISIS after allegedly attacking demonstrators outside Gracie Mansion in March. Prosecutors have not yet accused either defendant of contacting the group directly, the NYT reported.