Doctor's daughter, nine months pregnant, is terrorist suspect

Explosive material was found at the Greenwich Village home Morgan Gliedman shared with her boyfriend

Morgan Gliedman lives in Manhattan's fashionable Greenwich Village and is nine-months pregnant with a child by her Harvard-educated partner. Few would have thought the 27-year-old daughter of a respected doctor could be an aspiring terrorist.

Yet police who searched the couple's apartment while investigating a credit card theft found an explosive material, bomb-making manuals, a sawn-off shotgun with 60 rounds, nine rifle magazines and a flare gun modelled on a grenade launcher.

Ms Gliedman was arrested at her home on West Ninth Street on Saturday with her boyfriend Aaron Greene, 31, according to the New York Post. But her appearance in court had to be delayed when she went into labour.

The building and others nearby were briefly evacuated after a plastic container containing seven grams of hexamethylene triperoxide diamine was found in the living room.

"This is a serious explosive used in terrorists' attacks previously," a police spokesman told the New York Times. "We have not yet determined why Greene had them in his possession."

The other weapons were found in their bedroom, according to police. Court papers show the couple were also in possession of a book called "the Terrorist Encyclopedia," with instructions on how to make booby traps and homemade bombs, along with several US Army field manuals.

While terrorism arrests are not uncommon in New York, the case has piqued the interest of the public largely due to the atypical profiles of the accused couple.

Mr Greene, 31, is reported to be a member of the Occupy Wall Street protest group – with political views described in the US media as "extreme" – but hardly fits the usual stereotype of a violent activist as the middle-class son of a businessman who runs a prominent art restoration firm. Ms Gliedman, who studied creative writing in Chicago, is said to be the daughter of a radiotherapist in Brooklyn and a real estate agent. However, the police spokesman, Paul Greene, also described the couple as "admitted heroin addicts".

Ms Gliedman's lawyer has blamed Mr Greene, whose own lawyer is yet to comment.