http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/27/nyregion/ahmad-khan-rahamis-father-and-wife-hire-aclu-to-defend-him.html 2016-09-27 04:54:39 Ahmad Khan Rahami’s Father and Wife Hire A.C.L.U. to Defend Him A dispute continues over what jurisdiction should provide a lawyer for Mr. Rahami, who faces federal charges in both New York and New Jersey for two bombings. === The question of legal representation for Alexander Shalom, a senior A.C.L.U. lawyer in New Jersey, said the group had also written to prosecutors in the United States attorney’s offices in both Manhattan and Newark, which have filed charges against Mr. Rahami for his alleged role in the bombings, stating that he should not be questioned by the authorities. “Do not interrogate my client without my authorization and not until such time as I have had an opportunity to discuss the matter with him,” Mr. Shalom said in a letter to Paul J. Fishman, the United States attorney for New Jersey, which he said was copied to prosecutors in Manhattan. The two prosecutors’ offices had no comment on Monday. Mr. Rahami remains hospitalized in Newark, where he is recovering from gunshot wounds sustained in a confrontation with police officers. But there has been an unusual and intensified dispute over his representation. Last week, the federal public defenders’ offices in Manhattan and Newark each asked to be appointed to represent him, but prosecutors objected in both jurisdictions, arguing that Mr. Rahami had not yet been placed under federal arrest, and magistrate judges in both cities declined to appoint the public defender offices. Then, on Thursday, Peter A. Liguori, a state public defender in Union County, N.J., said in court papers that he would represent Mr. Rahami on state charges that alleged he tried to kill the police officers who had tracked him down in Linden, N.J. Mr. Liguori sought to meet with Mr. Rahami at the hospital, but On Monday, the county prosecutor’s office wrote to Judge Caulfield, saying that the state’s understanding of Mr. Rahami’s current medical condition was “that he continues to be incapacitated and unable to communicate.” The office said he was “not presently in a physical state to assert his right to counsel.”