[Editor's Note: A slightly different version of the earlier report.]
3 Texas men arraigned on terror charges.
Three Texas men were arraigned Saturday on terrorism-related charges
after police found about 1,000 cell phones in their minivan.
Investigators believe the men were targeting the 5-mile-long Mackinac
Bridge, which connects Michigan's Upper and Lower peninsulas. But one
of the men said they were only trying to buy and sell phones to make
money.
A magistrate set bond at $750,000 for each of the men, who are charged
with collecting or providing materials for terrorist acts and
surveillance of a vulnerable target for terrorist purposes. No pleas
were made at the arraignment at a District Court in Caro, about 80
miles north of Detroit.
Officials have not said what they believe the men intended to do with
the phones, most of which were prepaid TracFones. But Caro's police
chief said cell phones can be used as detonators, and prosecutors in a
similar case in Ohio have said that TracFones are often used by
terrorists because they are not traceable.
"All we did is buy the phones to sell and make money," Louai
Abdelhamied Othman told the magistrate. He said it wasn't the first
time the group had been questioned.
"We've been checked by the FBI before," he said. "They even gave us
their card and everything."
Tuscola County Prosecutor Mark E. Reene told The Saginaw News that
investigators believe the men were targeting the Mackinac Bridge. He
declined to say what led investigators to that belief.
Reene and the FBI did not return phone messages Saturday to The
Associated Press.
Othman and Maruan Awad Muhareb, both of Mesquite, Texas, and Adham
Abdelhamid Othman, of Dallas, were stopped before dawn Friday after
they purchased 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart in Caro. Police said
they found about 1,000 cell phones in their minivan.
The men cooperated with police and the FBI for hours before their
arrests Friday afternoon. Adham and Louai Othman are in their early
20s, and Muhareb is 18. All are being held at the Tuscola County Jail,
Caro police said.
The arrests in Caro came three days after two men were arrested in
Marietta, Ohio, where police said they aroused suspicions when they
acknowledged buying about 600 phones in recent months at stores in
southeast Ohio.
Ali Houssaiky and Osama Abulhassan, both 20 and from Detroit suburb of
Dearborn, have been charged with two felonies: money laundering in
support of terrorism and soliciting or providing support for acts of
terrorism, and misdemeanor falsification. A preliminary hearing on the
felony counts was set for Tuesday.
Defense lawyers said Houssaiky and Abulhassan planned to resell the
phones simply to make money. They say the men were targeted only
because they are of Arab descent.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press.
NOTE: For more telecom/internet/networking/computer news from the
daily media, check out our feature 'Telecom Digest Extra' each day at
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/more-news.html . Hundreds of new
articles daily. And, discuss this and other topics in our forum at
http://telecom-digest.org/forum (or)
http://telecom-digest.org/chat/index.html
For additional headlines and news from Associated Press, please go to:
http://telecom-digest.org/td-extra/AP.html
Associated Press News Wire (