Friday, November 2, 2001

Student allegedly lied about knowing hijacker
By Larry Neumeister
Associated Press

NEW YORK — A U.S. college student who allegedly lied to a grand jury when he denied knowing one of the Sept. 11 hijackers had videotapes about martyrs and pictures of Osama bin Laden in his car and home, prosecutors said in an indictment released Thursday.

According to the federal indictment handed up Wednesday, a search of Osama Awadallah’s car after he was taken into custody in September found videotapes titled “Martyrs of Bosnia,” “Bosnia 1993” and “The Koran v. the Bible, Which Is God’s Word?”

A search of Awadallah’s apartment yielded computer-generated photographs of bin Laden, the indictment said.

Awadallah, a 21-year-old Jordanian, is a student at Grossmont College in La Mesa, Calif., near San Diego.

The indictment was the first made public in New York in connection with the terrorism investigation. In court papers, prosecutors said they considered the attacks an “attempt to levy war against the United States.”

The indictment charges Awadallah with two counts of perjury for allegedly lying about his association with Khalid Al-Mihdhar.

Al-Mindhar and another of Awadallah’s associates, Nawaf Al-Hazmi, have been identified by federal authorities as hijackers on the airliner that hit the Pentagon.

The indictment also said a search of a car registered to Al-Hazmi produced a piece of paper on which was written “OSAMA” and a seven-digit number. Prosecutors said the number, combined with the 619 area code used in the San Diego area, was a telephone number formerly assigned to Awadallah.

Jesse Berman, Awadallah’s lawyer, called the materials found in his client’s car and apartment “window dressing” by prosecutors desperate to build a case.

“It’s obviously not a crime. It doesn’t mean anything. It catches the eye of people who want to find something where there’s not something seriously criminal,” Berman said.
Prosecutors said Awadallah identified Al-Hazmi in photographs during testimony Oct. 10, saying he saw him 35 to 40 times in the San Diego area between April 2000 and last January.

But he denied knowing Al-Mihdhar or writing his first name “Khalid” in a book, which led to the two perjury charges.