Megahed Charged With Terrorism

But, but, but he was just an innocent student with fireworks!

Oh, I guess not.

A federal immigration judge denied bail Friday to a 23-year-old engineering student from Tampa who has been charged by the U.S. government for engaging in terrorism.

The defendant, Youssef Megahed, has already been acquitted by a federal jury of related charges. But now, he faces essentially the same charges again in an immigration court, where if he is found guilty he faces deportation back to his native Egypt.

The undergraduate from the University of South Florida was arrested in 2007 in South Carolina with a companion, another USF student from Egypt named Ahmed Mohamed, driving a car that allegedly had explosives in the trunk. Mr. Megahed's companion explained the lengths of PVC pipe and chemical compounds were simply home-made fireworks that Mr. Mohamed planned to detonate for fun during a vacation. Mr. Mohamed later agreed to plead guilty to a federal charge of providing material support to terrorism — and submit to a 15-year sentence — while six charges of transporting explosives were dropped.

Mr. Megahed decided to fight those charges in court and was acquitted April 3 on four criminal counts stemming from the arrest. He had already served nine months in jail before making bail prior to the opening of his trial in March in Tampa.

But three days after the acquittal, Mr. Megahed was arrested a second time by federal agents at a local Wal-Mart store where he was shopping with his father. Mr. Megahed was charged under the Immigration and Naturalization Act as someone a U.S. official "knows, or has reason to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage" in terrorist activity. He was also designated for deportation to Egypt, the country he emigrated from in 1998, when he was 12 years old.

I wonder if the Egyptians waterboard terror suspects?