The clerk at an Islamic bookstore who plotted to put a bomb in the Herald Square subway station will spend the next 30 years in prison, a federal judge decided yesterday. Police Commissioner Kelly, whose department led the investigation that resulted in the arrest of Shahawar Matin Siraj, lauded the sentence.

“The Siraj sentence is a milestone in the safeguarding of New York City,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement sent via email. “It says that those who conspire against New York will pay a severe price.”

Lawyers for Siraj, 24, had asked for a sentence as short as five years. When the judge, Nina Gershon of U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, said she was instead considering imposing a sentence of between 30 years and life, Siraj jerked his head in surprise toward two of his lawyers. Later, when he was led away by deputy marshals, Siraj raised a hand in greeting to his mother and father, who stood in the back of the courtroom. Siraj offered no other reaction to the sentence.

Federal prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn had based their request for a strict sentence not only on the bomb plot for which Siraj was convicted, but also because they said they believed Siraj would resume plotting if released.

Prosecutors arrived at this assessment from a recorded statement Siraj made to a police informant that was introduced as evidence at trial, according to a letter to the court from assistant U.S. attorneys Todd Harrison and Marshall Miller.

“When I will be old, 70 years old, I want to die,” Siraj is quoted as saying in that letter. “I will go on a bridge, I will take this one, that have a lot of cars on it.”

When handing down the sentence, Judge Gershon, who was nominated to the bench by President Clinton, respond directly to the concern that Siraj continued to pose a risk.

A sentence of 30 years is, Judge Gershon said, “sufficient to serve as both punishment and deterrent to the defendant and others.”

Siraj, who was born in Pakistan and emigrated to America in 1999, was convicted in May 2006 following a monthlong trial. The most serious charge for which he was found guilty was planning to place a bomb in a transportation system. Siraj took the lead role in reconnoitering the subway station at Herald Square and drawing diagrams that included locations where he could place a bomb. Prior to his arrest in 2004, Siraj frequently spoke of his desire to bomb the station and harm the country’s economy. He had these discussions in conversations with an undercover police informant and with a friend from Staten Island, James Elshafay, who awaits sentencing for his role in the plot.

Siraj never possessed any explosives and was relying on the police informant to provide them. Siraj’s lawyers argued that the undercover police informant, Osama Eldawoody, played a guiding role in the plot and encouraged Siraj to develop the plans. In responding to this entrapment defense, prosecutors proved that Siraj, even before he had met the undercover informer, had often voiced his support of suicide bombings and Osama bin Laden to the group of young men which gathered at the Islamic bookstore in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, where Siraj worked.

Judge Gershon said yesterday the government’s proof that Siraj was guilty as charged is “overwhelming.”

Before Judge Gershon imposed sentence, Siraj delivered a rambling speech. He initially seemed contrite.

Referring to the recordings of incriminating conversations of his played at trial, Siraj said “I first want to apologize to you for all the recordings that you listened to at my trial…. I wish I could take those words back. But I cannot. I already said those things.”

But Siraj turned defensive. “I’m taking responsibility for 34 street, but I was manipulated by this person,” Siraj said, referring to the confidential informant.

One of Siraj’s lawyers, Martin Stolar, called the sentence “outrageous” as he left the courthouse. “The New York City Police Department was able to create a crime and then solve it in order to be able to claim a victory in the War on Terror,” Mr. Stolar said.

Siraj’s mother made a similar statement.

“The NYPD through a paid informer tricked my son and got him stuck in this,” Siraj’s mother, Shahina Parveen, told reporters as she wept, clinging to green prayer beads with both of her hands. She spoke in Urdu, which was translated by another of Siraj’s attorneys, Khurrum Wahid. She said, “My son is innocent, he didn’t do anything. I didn’t get any justice.”

Both Ms. Parveen and her husband currently face deportation orders that are unrelated to their son’s criminal case, Mr. Wahid said. They are appealing those orders. Siraj will be deported at the time of his release, his lawyers said. Judge Gershon ordered him to not illegally reenter this country.