5-year term for would-be subway bomber

A man who pleaded guilty to plotting to blow up a New York subway station next to Macy's flagship department was sentenced Friday to five years in prison.

James Elshafay, along with Pakistani immigrant Shahawar Matin Siraj, had been caught with crude diagrams of the Herald Square subway station on Aug. 27, 2004 _ the eve of the Republican National Convention. Prosecutors said the men wanted to avenge the abuses of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison.

When the two were arrested, authorities said, they hadn't obtained explosives and had not been linked to known terrorist groups.

Elshafy, the son of an Egyptian father and an Irish mother, agreed to cooperate with investigators, pleaded guilty and testified last year against Siraj, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

At Siraj's trial, Elshafay said he was taking medication for depression and schizophrenia at the time, and that after meeting Siraj at an Islamic bookstore, they hatched an initial scheme _ later abandoned _ to blow up the four bridges connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn and New Jersey.

When asked about Siraj's reaction to the conversation about the bridges, Elshafay said, "He smiled." Siraj had caught the attention of undercover police with his anti-American rants after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.