ADVERTISEMENT The man accused of setting a woman on fire and killing her inside a New York City subway train used a shirt to fan the flames, a prosecutor said Tuesday at his arraignment.
Authorities say Zapeta approached the woman, who may have been sleeping on the train, and set her clothing on fire with a lighter.
Zapeta then fanned the flames with a shirt, engulfing her in fire, Assistant District Attorney Ari Rottenberg said in court Tuesday.
What they saw was a person standing inside the train car fully engulfed in flames,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said.
Pakistan has seen innumerable militant attacks in the past two decades, but there has been an uptick in recent months.
At his arraignment on Tuesday, a prosecutor claimed that the man who is accused of killing a woman by setting her on fire inside a New York City subway train did so by fanning the flames with a shirt.
The 33-year-old Sebastian Zapeta, who authorities claim is a Guatemalan national who entered the US illegally, remained silent during the Brooklyn criminal court hearing. He didn’t have to offer an explanation.
Zapeta is scheduled to appear in court again on Friday and will continue to be held at the city’s Rikers Island complex. The lawyer for him did not request bail.
Zapeta is facing one arson charge and two murder charges. The maximum penalty for the most serious charge is life in prison without the possibility of release.
Eric Gonzalez, the district attorney for Brooklyn, described the attack as a “gruesome and senseless act of violence” and warned that it would have “the most serious consequences.”.
The attack on a F train that was halted at the Coney Island station on Sunday morning appeared to be random. Identification of the victim is still pending.
The woman might have been sleeping on the train when Zapeta approached her and used a lighter to burn her clothes, according to the authorities. Assistant District Attorney Ari Rottenberg stated in court on Tuesday that Zapeta then spread the fire with a shirt, engulfing her in flames.
Rottenberg said that Zapeta then observed from a bench on the subway platform.
Rottenberg said Zapeta identified himself in photos of the attack but told investigators he didn’t know what had happened.
Police actions are questioned.
Social media footage seems to show at least one police officer passing by and some onlookers on the platform as the woman is burning inside the train.
Joseph Gulotta, the NYPD Transit Chief, reported on Sunday that multiple officers had responded to the fire. One remained to maintain the crime scene “the way it’s supposed to be,” while the others went to retrieve transit workers and fire extinguishers.
Officers who were on patrol on a higher floor of that station went to look into the smoke after smelling it. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch stated, “They observed a person standing inside the train car completely engulfed in flames.”.
In the end, they extinguished the fire, but Tisch stated that “unfortunately, it was too late,” and the woman was declared dead at the scene.
Teenagers recognized Zapeta from police-circulated photos, and he was arrested Sunday afternoon while traveling by train on the same subway line.
Zapeta’s police-released Brooklyn address corresponds to a shelter that offers both housing and drug rehab services. An inquiry was not immediately answered by the shelter.
According to federal immigration officials, Zapeta was deported in 2018 but subsequently entered the country illegally.
46 people were killed by Pakistani airstrikes on eastern Afghanistan, primarily women and children, according to a Taliban government official on Wednesday.
Six others were also injured in the Pakistani border province of Paktika, according to Taliban deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat.
The majority of the victims were Waziristan region refugees, the Taliban government said Tuesday, condemning the attack and vowing retaliation.
The operation on Tuesday was to destroy a training facility and eliminate insurgents in the province, Pakistani security officials told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with regulations.
Mohammad Khurasani, the spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said in a statement that the strikes have killed 50 people, including 27 women and children.
Although it is a distinct organization, the TTP is close to the Afghan Taliban, who took over the country in August 2021.
Regarding the strikes, Pakistan has remained silent. Nonetheless, the Pakistani military reported on Wednesday that 13 insurgents were slain by security forces in South Waziristan, a district in Pakistan that shares a border with Paktika, during an intelligence-based operation.
The strikes will probably make tensions between the two nations even higher. Pakistan claimed that intelligence-based strikes occurred in Afghanistan’s border areas in March.
Although there have been countless militant attacks in Pakistan over the last 20 years, there has been a recent spike in these attacks. Most recently, the TTP attacked a checkpoint in the northwest of Pakistan this past weekend, killing at least 16 Pakistani soldiers.
The Afghan Taliban government denies the accusation made by Pakistani officials that the Taliban is not doing enough to stop militant activity across the shared border, claiming that it forbids attacks against any nation.
