Mystery at Goose Creek update: Federal grand jury investigates
Remember the accused pipe bomb boys arrested on the road to Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station in South Carolina? Here’s a new update. The Tampa Tribune reports today that a federal grand jury investigating the case has asked for DNA and hair samples from one of the suspects:
A federal grand jury in Tampa is asking for DNA and hair samples from a University of South Florida student jailed four weeks ago in South Carolina on explosives charges, his attorney said.
Andrew Savage said in a phone interview Wednesday night that he had no indication why the samples were being sought from his client, Youssef Megahed.
The news came as the grand jury heard testimony Wednesday from people who have connections to Megahed and Ahmed Mohamed, another USF student arrested at the same time.
Accompanied by attorneys, at least three people entered the grand jury area of the U.S. District courthouse on North Florida Avenue in downtown Tampa. They were the owner of a home where Mohamed planned to rent a room, the landlord’s son and a Muslim community spokesman. All three later declined to comment to a reporter.
Noor and Ghassan Salhab, with attorney Brooke Elvington, spent about an hour in the grand jury area Wednesday and refused to comment to the media. The Tribune notes that Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hoffer gave U.S. Magistrate Thomas Wilson a report from the grand jury, which was promptly sealed.
Curiouser and curiouser. CAIR remains entangled in the case, natch:
Also appearing before the grand jury Wednesday was Ahmed Bedier, who has been a spokesman for the Megahed family. Bedier is executive director of the Tampa chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and a frequent media spokesman for Muslims and Islamic causes.
He was accompanied by attorney Lyann Goudie and appeared to be in the grand jury area for about an hour.
Bedier declined to answer questions about his testimony, saying he wanted to check with the national headquarters of CAIR about what he was allowed to say.
You’ll recall from my last post on the subject that the Tampa home raided in connection with the arrests was a home that had been rented previously to WISE (World and Islam Studies Enterprise), one of two groups founded by convicted jihad supporter Sami Al-Arian, who was a professor at University of South Florida–the same university that the suspects, Ahmed Megahed and Yousef Mohamed, attend.
Just a reminder that the police in SC are standing by their charges and that one FBI official disputed recent characterizations of its press release about the case. One more tidbit from a recent St. Petersburg Times article worth noting:
Prosecutors say they are still trying to determine what the men were doing, where they were headed.
“That’s the unusual part,” said Frank Hunt, a spokesman for the Solicitor’s Office. “They said they were going to North Carolina on the way to the beach. Well, that’s not the way to North Carolina.”
…The car had a Global Positioning System device, so investigators would have a record of all the men’s movements…Not to mention cell phone records.
There’s a preliminary hearing on the explosive charges set for Sept. 21.
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Trackbacks
- Update on Goose Creek : The American Pundit | News and Opinion With A Conservative View
- Megahed DNA Requested by Grand Jury « Waste Of My Oxygen
- OpinionBug.com » Federal Grand Jury Wants DNA Samples From Youssef Megahed
- Riehl World View
- Jihad Watch
- The Jawa Report
- southchild » Blog Archive » Update on Pipe-Bomb-Packing Students
- Bill's Bites
- Michelle Malkin » Breaking: Goose Creek indictments
- Tel-Chai Nation
- Update on Foiled Terror Attack in Germany at Conservative Times--Republican GOP news source.
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Categories: Goose Creek, Jihadists
Sister Toldjah
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That’s the problem right there. You ever used one of those new fangled GPS things? Some of them are so poor that result in you getting lost. I’ve been directed to take roads that don’t exist, turn at junctions that aren’t there, go the wrong way down a one way street… the list is endless. It could have happened to these guys.
Somehow I’m not convinced …
The GPS track is just one bit of evidence not the whole case.
I have used mine to navigate in trail-less woods and found it to be quite accurate. Give it a try: http://www.topozone.com/viewmaps.asp#dm
Miss Teen South Carolina called; she wasn’t convinced either.
“We don’t know why they had explosives in their car, nor their intentions, but we are certain it’s not terror related” — Typical GVMNT Response.
I think you’re really stretching it there. If you were travelling from St. Pete to the beaches of NC, about 500 miles of this 750 mile trip would be on I-95. These guys were picked up near Goose Creek Naval Weapons Station in SC, which is more than 50 miles from I-95, and not even half way through SC.
Even if I grant you the possibility that they were simply lost in the vicinity of the Naval Weapons Station that just happened to have housed other terrorists, there are still way too many other curious “coincidences” to dismiss these two as the Egyptian version of Dumb and Dumber.
These clowns weren’t necessarily on the way to blow something up. They may just as likely been on the way to a secluded picnic area to PRACTICE blowing things up.
Gimme a break!
Mechanical Engineering students, Gee, I wonder why they chose this course of study??????
Facts are hard to come by in this case, but I’ve seen reports that state the following:
(1) The suspects are accused, and are being held, for posession of pipe bombs (plural).
(2) The suspects claim that the explosives were fireworks.
I don’t know if a cardboard or paper wrapped firework can be classified as a pipe bomb. Where I come from, a pipe bomb always involved some form of pipe: copper, steel, PVC, etc., with explosive packed therein. There’s really no way to mistake the two.
Fireworks don’t make shrapnel other than paper/cardboard; pipe bombs most definitely do.
Possession of a pipe bomb is, in and of itself, a felony so these guys are nailed. The only questions now are:
-How many did they have?
-What types were they? Were they overly large? Did they have any fragmentation enhancements? Etc.
- Where were they going?
- Why did they have them? What was their intent? The road they were stopped on is described by locals in some articles as being essentially “only to go to the naval base.”
- Where are they from?
Given the MSM it’s hard to get facts on thair nationality, but at least one is referred to as an “Egyptian Citizen.” I don’t care what your visa status is, if you’re a non-US citizen and you’re dealing with explosives, you’ve just earned a one-way ticket to Gitmo, IMHO.
Interesting how this incident is a non-event in the MSM. I know, “nothing to see here move along.” Another potential Johnny Jihad caught by the vigilance of the local authorities. It appears we dodged the bullet again, but it amazes me how fast a story about Muslims out to do no good gets buried so quickly by the MSM.
If these two travelers could have entered the Naval Weapons Station (highly unlikely) the devices they had in the trunk could have caused some mass casualties if placed in the proper places on the base (doubtful if they know were to place them and I sure as hell will not give any clues here). The Naval facilities I have visited always have Marine sentries and good luck getting past them at the gate if you don’t have the proper credentials.
It appears we have caught the Jihadist with their pants down again and their enablers in CAIR are trying to do what they can with their allies in the MSM to keep this as another non-story or claim it as another case of racial profiling (which makes me crazy because Islam is not a race). I’m looking forward to finding out what these two where really up to when the truth finally comes out.
Personally, I think we should investigate all Eastern Asian Students If they are going to cry Profiling at every turn lets really give them something to sink their teeth into. This country is turning into a bunch of mamby pambys with these groups/organizations walking all over us. It’s well past time to take America back.
ajmontana#8- I agree. Further, all international student visas should be granted only with a caveat that each student *consent* to being tracked while in this country for the term of their visas. And no automatic stay. At the end of each school year, you a)must return home and re-process; or, b) must go through rigorous re-processing here in the states using an appeal process.
As it stands now, college campuses have very underfunded “International Student Affairs” offices that are understaffed who are responsible for keeping track of this population. They cooperate with ICE and other immigration agencies, but it is a very water-downed toothless control process.
I think if colleges and universities were held accountable for keeping track of these admits- say by threatening to pull financial aid dollars for non-compliance- it might be taken more seriously.
Of course, what I think would get the world’s attention is closing the borders to all Middle Eastern students and for those who are here, forbidding them from enrolling in sciences and engineeering specialties. Don’t like it, go to France, and feel the love for your murderous self over there.
Sick of this “hands are tied” multi-culti nonsense.
I am appalled that no one here has realized what these poor lost and confused students were doing …
Obviously they were trying to determine which direction was East because it was “prayer” time … again …
As a result they were trying to use the GPS to locate a mosque … alas to no avail … the infidel device wasn’t programmed for Mosque locations …
They kept searching around and when they saw the outline of that missile on the launchpad from a distance they mistook if for a Minaret and they were headed toward it to pray ..
Such uninformed infidels …
/sarc off
Their smug mug shot smiles tell me they were counting on CAIR and the PC media to bail them out. Perhaps they smiled too soon.
I think the feds are making this an air-tight case against them. Otherwise, I think they would have already posted bail and returned to base camp in Tampa.
I agree with Irish Ei, you don’t go to NC beaches via SC’s little known road detours when there is an interstate that will take you there quicker. Especially if you have a GPS in the car.They were caught speeding away from the naval facility which leads me to believe they could have been checking it out. One guy was a scuba diver which also raises a red flag since security has been watching for that avenue of terrorist attacks.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Thanks, Michelle, for following this case.
Michelle – let me add my thanks, too, for following this case, since no one else appears to be interested at all. Why would they seal a Grand Jury report?
A friend of mine who lives in Charleston SC (you’d think she’d have some interest in terrorist activity in her area…) actually called me a racist for “not considering that the materials were in the trunk for model rocketry.”
I considered it. But since subsequent searches of their home, not to mention the trunk itself, turned up no model rockets or other items associated with the hobby, I rejected it.
The association with older men already indicted/convicted of terrorist activities, combined with the knowledge that thousands of international visitors have traveled from FL to NC without accidentally ending up near a naval base on a back road 50 miles from the interstate, are just gravy.
#5 aj
#6 Rob
Fireworks do cause frag – but not as effectively as a mechanical detonation.
google deflagration and detonation
When these guys were first arrested, I went to Dan Riehl’s blog. Several commenters there provided links to sites which described the chemicals used in model rockets. These guys did not have the right combination of chemicals for model rockets. Their mix of chemicals was only good for making explosives. So, are we supposed to believe they bought the wrong ingredients by accident?
I think they were trying to hook up with a couple of guys on the Bremerton Ferry in Seattle and just got turned around a little….
Middle Easterners with explosives? Yawn. Hillary gets campaign financing from foreign criminals? Yawn. Brittany slugs her mom – man the choppers, call in all those reporters from their vacations, set up the camera trucks, go live.
You’re right. Rocket fuel doesn’t explode (detonate), it burns. If it exploded, every singe attempted rocket launch would explode like a bomb on the launch pad.
If they had explosives, it definitely was not for model rockets.
Technically, even explosives “combust.” It’s just a matter of how violently and fast. A 50 gallon drum of gasoline, which clearly burns more than detonates, will blow up very nicely. Not that I ever saw that happen as a kid… ahem.
Anyway… If these guys were found with pipes full of legitimate rocket propellant, I’d still want them in Gitmo unless:
You can show that they have been working with model rockets for the last X years,
They have a license/permit to work with this stuff, and
An expert on model rocketry looked their stuff over and said “yes, those are rockets: nozzles, nose cones, etc.”
In which case I’d say “deport them if they’re not citizens and didn’t have a permit,” because even citizens need a permit to play with rocket propellant…
GPS receivers do not contain maps. There are several devices on the market that contain GPS receivers and display the GPS-derived location on maps also stored in the device. It’s not the fault of the GPS receiver if the map shows roads that don’t really exist. Yahaoo, Google, and MS Live Search all show a road that doesn’t exist and never has within a mile of my home.
Also some clarification on GPS knowing where you are and where you’ve been. The GPS system doesn’t even know you exist, let alone where you are. There are devices on the market that contain GPS receivers and some memory to keep track of where you’ve been, but the memory is not part of the receiver.
/nitpick mode
Bill Faith, BSEE 1976, MEEE 1985
Just let me, and my little show piglet talk to them.
Ooooh. I wish I’d known that when this story first broke.
#20 bdfaith:
I’ve read that many newer cars contain “black box” GPS technology separate from that used for navigation (”On Star” comes to mind)…
This data is used to calculate speed, distance travelled etc. Insurance companies and government can use the information to raise your rates, bill you for excessive speed (if legislated) etc.
‘least, that’s what I read.
A couple of weeks ago the local FBI office issued a statement backing off from their original claim that these guys had bombs in the car. I think they were being a little to PC because my LEO sources indicated that this was a long way from being over.
Time will tell. I personally believe there’s more to this than meets the eye. Maybe 30 years of cop work made me a little biased. We’ll see.