Florida: F.B.I. Backs USF Students on Explosives

[madfloridian]

Wondering how this will play out now with the FBI in their corner. They have already been indicted by a grand jury on charges of transporting explosives.



Thanks to Ybor City Stogie's blog for the article and the picture.

FBI says items were fireworks, not explosives

I wonder what took them so long to step into this case. That is confusing to me.

Two Egyptian college students arrested near a Navy weapons station in South Carolina last year were carrying low-grade fireworks, as they claimed, not explosives as charged by federal prosecutors, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has determined. The men, Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, engineering students at the University of South Florida, were indicted by a Tampa grand jury on charges of transporting explosives.

The F.B.I. report was submitted to the court Wednesday by Mr. Megahed’s lawyer as part of a motion seeking bail. It said the items in the car — PVC pipe containing a mixture of sugar, potassium nitrate and cat litter — were ingredients for a “pyrotechnic mixture” that burned but did not explode. Mr. Megahed is a permanent resident of the United States; Mr. Mohamed was on a student visa.

I hope this case has a fair outcome. The coverage has not been pretty.