Maniac who set NYC straphanger on fire was behind earlier similar incident: cops

The deranged nut who tossed flaming liquid at an unsuspecting straphanger also tried to torch a group of commuters at a Manhattan subway station earlier this year, cops said Sunday.

The suspect, Nile Taylor, 49, gave an icy stare to photographers as he was led from Transit District 2 to Manhattan court for arraignment in the weekend case Sunday afternoon.

Taylor was in custody on an assault rap in the fiery Saturday attack on 23-year-old Petrit Alijaj at the Varick Street station in Manhattan when he was identified and charged in a similar Feb. 5 incident at the West 28th Street subway station, too, police said.

A man now identified as Taylor can be seen on surveillance footage in the February incident holding two cans of flammable liquid and hurling them at a group of people at the station.

No one was hurt in the incident, and the suspect fled and remained on the lam until now.

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Around 2:45 p.m. Saturday, Alijaj and his fiancee were about to get off a No. 1 train at West Houston and Varick streets as they headed to the Statue of Liberty when Taylor allegedly hurled flaming liquid at him .

The burn victim told The Post on Saturday that he used his body to block his girlfriend from the flames.

“I protect my fiancee with my body,” he said.

Alijaj ended up ripping off his burning shirt while his assailant fled the scene.

“I touched myself to put out the fire,” Alijaj recalled. “So, while I was running, I was burning.

“The doctors said 30% of my body was burnt. But I don’t think it is 30%. Maybe more like 10%,” he said.

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The victim was taken to New York Presbyterian-Weill Cornell Hospital to be treated for his burns.

He moaned in pain as he told The Post from his hospital bed Sunday, “I’m not OK, I’m not OK.”

Taylor was nabbed by cops about five blocks away at Canal and Renwick streets near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel — done in by the cell phone he’d swiped off the subway platform afterward, allowing quick-thinking officers to track him down through it.

He was being questioned by NYPD detectives and awaiting arraignment Sunday — as cops identified him as the alleged suspect in the earlier incident, law-enforcement sources said.

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He is now charged with assault, arson, reckless endangerment and weapons possession in the February case.

Taylor also has been arrested for theft of service in a sealed case and criminal possession of a weapon in 1997, sources said.

Meanwhile, he isn’t the only alleged vagrant firebug in the transit system.

In March, police charged Israel Montero, a Bronx menace with a history of emotional disturbances, with setting a garbage bag on fire on a subway car at the 125th Street station in Manhattan.

Montero, 49, even set his own shoes on fire in the May 3 blaze, police said.

-Additional reporting by Marie Pohl

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