the rix mix

we'll remember all winter long:

TAMPA, Fla. - 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.
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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.
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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.

There's enough evidence to prove they're stupid, not that it's illegal in America, or uncommon among south Florida college students. It's reasonable to wonder why anyone in the south needs to construct their own fireworks. Mohamed is here on a student visa, & he fired an expensive lawyer the Egyptian Consulate had hired for him. Megahed has a green card & lives with his family. Since the Feds have weak cases, these two knuckleheads ought to be given bail & whispered advice from two governments that they will not be prevented from purchasing & using one-way tickets to Egypt. Rights? Sure, you got rights. But we have enough problems. Save us the effort & expense of staging a judicial spectacle in an election year. If you stay & fight, good luck finding an impartial jury.

The midway and the fun, the kewpie dolls we won,
The bell I rang to prove that I was strong;
The things we did last summer we'll remember all winter long.

Labels: count the yoyos