Florida Muslim Students Indicted (Video Update: CAIR Spokesman Calls Them 'Victims')
Sat, Sep 1, 2007 at 8:40:21 am PDT
Those two Egyptian students at the University of South Florida who were caught with pipe bombs near a South Carolina Navy base have been indicted, and one of them turns out to have a history of involvement in terrorism.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, an engineering graduate student and teaching assistant at the Tampa-based university, faces terrorism charges for teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives.
According to officials familiar with the case, Mohamed has been arrested previously in Egypt on terrorism-related charges. He is said to have produced an Internet video showing how to build a remote-controlled car bomb.
Mohamed and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, also an engineering student, were stopped for speeding Aug. 4 in Goose Creek, S.C., where they have been held on state charges. Police found pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base in South Carolina where enemy combatants have been held. They have been held in a South Carolina jail while the FBI continued to investigate whether there was a terrorism link.
It should be noted that after their arrest, the Council on American Islamic Relations immediately jumped out and defended these two, saying they were just “naïve kids” and the pipe bombs were nothing but “fireworks.”
An Islamic community leader from Tampa, Fla., who’s been in touch with the families of the two detained college students, told The Post and Courier that Megahed and Mohamed are not troublemakers and that they were simply on a weekend trip to North Carolina.
Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization for Muslims, said family members have told him they think the materials were leftover fireworks Megahed kept in his trunk since July 4.
“Both of them are really naïve kids,” Bedier said.
UPDATE at 9/1/07 9:37:41 am:
Here’s video of a press conference held by CAIR and the Muslim Student Association immediately following the arrests, in which CAIR’s Ahmed Bedier says the two students are “victims.” (Around 1:52 / 16:41.)
