| Fbi says fire crackers were terrorist explosives { January 31 2008 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAtZCOCu6i-MQvVj4csX_VuLyY8QD8UH2UE80http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iAtZCOCu6i-MQvVj4csX_VuLyY8QD8UH2UE80
FBI: Students' 'Bombs' Were Fireworks By MITCH STACY January 31, 2008
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Two Egyptian college students arrested near a South Carolina Navy weapons station last year were carrying low-grade fireworks, as they claimed, not the dangerous explosives as charged by federal prosecutors, the FBI has determined.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been in jail since sheriff's deputies found what they called bomb-making materials in the trunk of their car during a traffic stop near Charleston, S.C.
The FBI report was submitted to the court Wednesday by Megahed's public defender as part of a motion seeking bail. U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Steve Cole declined comment on the filing Thursday.
The two men, both engineering students at the University of South Florida, were indicted on federal charges of transporting explosives illegally.
The FBI report said the items found in the trunk of the car — PVC pipe containing a mixture of sugar, potassium nitrate and cat litter — are ingredients for a "pyrotechnic mixture" that burned but didn't explode in tests.
"Simply put, based on the FBI expert testing, the PVC pipes found in the trunk of the vehicle were harmless pyrotechnic materials similar to those found in fireworks and road flares," wrote public defender Adam Allen in a motion asking a judge to reconsider letting Megahed out on bail.
Allen said the testing corroborates Mohamed's claim that he was interested in fireworks and bought ingredients to make his own "sugar rockets." The materials don't meet the legal definition of explosives, Allen said.
Still problematic for Mohamed is a video found on a laptop in the car in which, prosecutors contend, he demonstrates how to convert a remote-control toy into a detonator for a bomb. According to an FBI affidavit, he told authorities that he made the video "to assist those persons in Arabic countries to defend themselves against the infidels invading their countries."
Besides the explosives charge, Mohamed faces a terrorism-related count of demonstrating how to use a destructive device for violence. According to the FBI, the laptop also contained stored information on building destructive explosives. Bullets and gun-cleaning kits also were found in the car, the FBI said.
Allen contends Megahed didn't know anything about the information on the laptop or the items in the trunk of the car Mohamed was driving when he was stopped for speeding. Allen said the students were on an innocent road trip to Sunset Beach, N.C., which was the destination programmed into the GPS unit in the car.
But a federal judge who denied bail for Megahed in October wasn't convinced, saying that the evidence available at the time "fails to establish or even suggest any innocent or wholesome explanation for the events" that led to the arrest of the students.
Megahed is a permanent resident of the United States who lives in Tampa with his family and was nearing graduation. Mohamed was a civil engineering graduate student who came to the university in January. He was in the country on a student visa.
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