Moncks Corner, SC. Two men found with what authorities said were several pipe bombs in their car near a Navy base were charged Monday with possession of an explosive device.
A joint state-federal investigation was under way, but no link to terrorism had been found, said FBI spokeswoman Denise Taiste. The Navy base is the site of a brig where enemy combatants have been held.
Ahmed Abda Sherf Mohamed, 24, and Yousef Samir Megahed, 21, both students at the University of South Florida in Tampa, were driving through the area Saturday to vacation at a North Carolina beach for Mohamed’s birthday, their defense attorney said.
“They admitted to having what they said were fireworks,” Berkeley County Sheriff Wayne DeWitt said. “Based on the officer’s judgment at hand, based on what he had seen, we judged it to be other than fireworks.”
Mohamed, 24, said he made pipe bombs from items he bought at Wal-Mart, according to an affidavit with his arrest warrant.
Defense attorney Dennis Rhoad, said the men have a reason for having the devices and it would become clear in later court hearings.
“The defendants deny the allegations the state and the sheriff have made against them,” Rhoad said.
Prosecutor Scarlett Wilson asked for high bond, which was set at $500,000 for Mohamed and $300,000 for Megahed, because she said the men were dangerous and a risk to flee.
Mohamed is a native of Kuwait and Megahed is Egyptian, the sheriff said. Both are in the country legally.
Ahmed Bedier, the executive director of a civil rights organization for Moslems in Tampa, criticized the arrests as racial profiling, an accusation South Carolina police refuted.
It’s not clear whether the item found in the vehicle is actually a bomb, said Bedier, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
“If it’s clearly a pipe bomb, that’s a different story. Then there is cause for concern,” Bedier said. “However, we have not seen consistent evidence that it is a pipe bomb. There is a lot of contradiction out there.”
Megahed lives with his family and they voluntarily allowed the FBI to search their home in Tampa on Monday, Bedier said.
“They’re so confident that they don’t have anything in their home that they gave the keys to some agents. The father voluntarily allowed them to go search the home unsupervised,” Bedier said.
Mohamed and Megahed were stopped for speeding Saturday night on U.S. 176 near Goose Creek, which is the site of the Naval Weapons Station and houses the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig, a military prison where enemy combatants have been held.
They were heading west, away from Goose Creek, when they were pulled over about seven miles from the sprawling Navy facility, police said.
Officers became suspicious because the men quickly put away a laptop computer and couldn’t immediately say what they were doing in the area or where they were going, DeWitt said.
CFPA: Does anyone really expect these two Muzis to tell the truth? We don't either.
Posted: 7 Aug 2007