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?

USF Student Pleads Guilty to Supporting Terrorists

University of South Florida student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed entered a guilty plea to terror-related charges today.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed entered a plea agreement Friday.

In the court document, he admits to providing material to support terrorists. He also acknowledges that a YouTube video he produced was to be used in "preparation for or in carrying out the killing of employees of the United States," including uniformed personnel.

Mohamed and Youssef Megahed were arrested August 4, 2007, in Goose Creek, South Carolina after a traffic stop. Authorities recovered a number of items from the car which constituted explosive materials.

Megahed remains in custody.

Why, all time time the unindicted Hamas co-conspirators from CAIR told us these little darlings were simply carrying fireworks in their trunk.

More here.

"This plea agreement was at the request of our client after a very long and agonizing decision by both him and his family, and it was his decision to resolve this matter through this plea," said Linda Moreno, one of Mohamed's defense attorneys.

Mohamed was arrested Aug. 4 near Goose Creek, S.C., with Youssef Megahed, 22, another former USF student. A sheriff's deputy stopped the men for speeding and searched their car when he became suspicious. He found what prosecutors said were low-grade explosives in the trunk.

A federal grand jury in Tampa indicted both men for illegally transporting explosive material across state lines. Mohamed faced additional, more serious, charges that included accusations of violating his student visa by possessing a firearm, demonstrating how to make an explosive device through a YouTube video and providing material support to terrorists.

CAIR, of course, cast them as victims.

The Times quoted Bedier the civil rights activist Monday and Tuesday on the case of two University of South Florida students accused of carrying explosives over state lines. Since their arrest following a traffic stop near Goose Creek, S.C. last August, Bedier cast Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed as naïve kids victimized by racial profiling.

More from Michelle Malkin.

Another USF Student Arrested

A third University of South Florida student has been arrested in connection to the Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed case.

He has a very familiar last name.

On the University of South Florida campus, some students were concerned to hear the FBI has now arrested a third Muslim student, connected to a terrorism case against two other USF students.

"It does make me a little nervous about what kind of kids are around here on campus and I do live on campus," said USF student Allie Hayes.

"It doesn't sound good for USF. It's just giving yourself a bad reputation," said USF student Mina Tawfik.

Karim Moussaoui was arrested at the Magnolia residence hall Thursday morning on a federal weapons charge in connection with the explosives case against Youssef Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed. The two USF students were arrested in South Carolina in August.

"As far as Mr. Moussaoui goes, we don't know what the story is, we don't know if in fact he's guilty of anything, charges have been brought," said Ken Gullette, USF Director of Media Relations.

Gullette says university officials are still trying to learn more about the charges against Moussaoui.

The federal complaint says Moussaoui entered the Shoot Straight Gun and Archery Range on U.S. 301 in Hillsborough County with Megahed and Mohamed in July.

An FBI agent says Moussaoui told them he did not fire any weapons, but pictures on Megahed's computer allegedly showed Moussaoui at a firing lane with a gun.

"We're Americans and we wouldn't tolerate anything to harm this country any more than anybody would so of course we're concerned any time something like this would come up," said Gullette

More here.

More from Doug Ross.

H/T Larwyn.

Tearjerking Saga of Mohamed and Megahed

The curious saga of Mohamed and Megahed continues. Poor little innocents detained by the big, bad authorities for merely having "fireworks" in their vehicle.

The St. Petersburg Times weighs in with a real tearjerker today,
via Riehl World View.

Suspicion arrives in Carolina suburbia: The USF students were arrested off the main route, but not in middle of nowhere.

More than a week after the incident, Youssef Megahed, 21, and Ahmed Mohamed, 26, remain in jail in rural Moncks Corner.

The FBI seized the Megahed family computers and searched a Temple Terrace home - one connected to both Mohamed and Sami Al-Arian, a former University of South Florida professor once accused of funding terrorist organizations.

The Goose Creek mayor said Tuesday he has inside information that he can't discuss.

The FBI won't say what, if anything, it has on Megahed and Mohamed. But Wednesday, the agency released a statement reminding the public to withhold judgment, that the allegations could prove false.

Several Tampa lawyers said they'd never seen an FBI statement like it and speculated that the case may be weak. Perhaps the two students had been jailed for carrying nothing more dangerous than fireworks.

The Berkeley County Sheriff's Office adamantly disagreed with that on Thursday.

"We made the proper charges against these people," said Berkeley Capt. Rick Ollic. "We are continuing the investigation. These charges are appropriate."

Megahed's new defense attorney, Andy Savage, saw things differently.

"What has happened to these two young men would not happen to two Irish-Americans," Savage said.

As an Irish-American who has intimate familiarity with Irish-Americans, let me first say I'm deeply troubled by such a sterotype. Still, I must agree with Savage.

We're not stupid enough to be caught driving around near a military base with pipe bombs in our vehicles.

Savage is widely known in Charleston for taking on high-profile cases, including enemy combatant Ali al-Marri, who is held at a nearby military brig. Savage characterized the city as a mostly white, conservative area where the crime rate is low and military ties are strong.

"Muslims are still strangers in that community," he said. "They're still viewed with some suspicion."

Gee, I wonder why...

Al Qaeda Cell on the Loose in America?

Eli Lake has some disturbing details evolving out of the Scotland jihadi plot.

Al Qaeda Cell May Be Loose in U.S., British Plot Hints

WASHINGTON — As an American-born spokesman for Al Qaeda threatens to blow up American embassies abroad, intelligence gleaned from last month's British "doctors plot" of car bombers suggests that a Qaeda cell is on the loose in the American homeland.

E-mail addresses for American individuals were found on the same password-protected e-mail chains used by the United Kingdom plotters to communicate with Qaeda handlers in Europe, a counterterrorism official told The New York Sun yesterday. The American and German intelligence community now believe the secure e-mail chains used in the United Kingdom plot have provided a window into an operational Qaeda network in several countries.

"Because of the London and Glasgow plot, we now know communications have been made from Al Qaeda to operatives in the United States," the counterterrorism official said on condition of anonymity. "This plot helps to connect a lot of stuff. We have seen money moving a lot through hawala networks and other illicit finance as well." But this source was careful to say that at this point no specific information, such as names, targets or a timeline, was known about any particular plot on American soil. The e-mail addresses that are linked to Americans were pseudonyms

Perhaps this is just a coincidence, but one might hope the authorities dig a little deeper into these mysterious men arrested over the weekend in a scandalously underreported story.

Authorities demolished a suspicious item found in a car that led police to close a highway outside Charleston Saturday night.

WIS News 10 spoke with officials at the Berkeley County Detention Center who said 24-year-old Ahmed Mohamed and 21-year-old Yousef Megahed, the occupants of the car, are still in police custody.

So far they have only been charged with possession of explosive devices, but the FBI is working to see if more crimes have been committed.

The Berkeley County Sheriff's Department tells WIS News 10 the two men are not US citizens.

Bomb squad technicians demolished an item found in the car at 2:45am Sunday. It made a loud bang, similar to a firecracker.

Seems to me two guys names Ahmed and Mohamed who are not U.S. citizens driving around with explosives rates a little bit more attention.

Dan Riehl has been all over this, and has numerous updates.

UPDATE: They're students at the University of South Florida.

Ahmed Bedier, executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a civil rights organization for Muslims, said the men arrested are Youseff Megahed, 21, and Ahmed Mohamed, 24 - two University of South Florida students.

Family members told Bedier they think the materials were leftover fireworks Megahed kept in his trunk since July 4.

“Both of them are really naïve kids,” Bedier said.

Please. USF just so happens to be where terror supporter Sami al-Arian was a professor.

All just coincidental, I'm sure.