Queens High-School Student Busted for Attempted Arson

March 23, 2005
A student yesterday was busted and charged with dousing a Queens high-school staircase with gasoline in a bid to torch it because he "wanted to kill a lot of people."

A student yesterday was busted and charged with dousing a Queens high-school staircase with gasoline in a bid to torch it because he "wanted to kill a lot of people," authorities said.

Shabaz Khan, 16, of the Campus Magnet School in Cambria Heights, later boasted to authorities he also had gotten his hands on ammunition and a landmine, and detailed information on how to make bombs and Molotov cocktails.

Cops found no weapons or ammunition any place connected with him.

Handwritten notes on the sickening arson plot and instructions downloaded from the Web on how to make bombs were found in his school knapsack, sources said.

"I'm not a terrorist," Khan whined to officials after his bust. "I just wanted to kill a lot of people."

The teen was nabbed as he showed up for school yesterday morning, after students to whom he had boasted about the fiendish plot ratted him out to fire marshals, sources said.

He reeked of gasoline, they said.

Another student who helped Khan hatch and then try to carry out the potentially deadly plan is still on the lam, officials said.

Sources said the duo's scheme was foiled after they failed to initially light the gasoline on the stairwell sometime Monday morning after school opened.

They then got nervous about being discovered and fled.

School workers smelled the gasoline around 12:30 p.m. and alerted fire officials, authorities said.

A probe led students to finger Khan and his buddy, sources said.

Officials said Khan was picked on at school partly because of his race

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