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Former USF Student's Attorneys Say Government Is Misrepresenting Video

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: April 3, 2008

TAMPA – Attorneys for a former University of South Florida student accused of trying to help terrorists are accusing the government of misrepresenting the contents of a YouTube video the defendant posted.

The prosecution has said Ahmed Mohamed, an Egyptian citizen, made a video in which he demonstrated how to use a remote-controlled toy to detonate a bomb.

The defense and prosecution are now squaring off in battling court filings over the defense claim that Mohamed's actions were an exercise of free speech.

Mohamed was arrested, along with fellow USF student Youssef Megahed, Aug. 4 in South Carolina after deputies said they found explosive materials in the trunk of their car. They face trial later this month on the explosives charge. Mohamed faces a trial next month on the charge he tried to help terrorists with the video.

A prosecution brief described the images on the video. And in the same paragraph, the prosecution filing says that Mohamed "praised the effort as one which would aid a 'brother' to carry out operations but not end up by 'blowing himself up.' He meant by this modification to 'increase Muslim lives one more life' so that 'the jihadists can have an additional mujahid.'"

"The clear impression the government wishes to convey here is that Mr. Mohamed said this on the video," defense attorneys state in a reply brief. "This is incorrect. In fact, the court should note that this specific comment, and others [that] were deleted, do not appear in the video and were never disseminated to anyone, but were retrieved by the FBI from the trash component of the hard drive" of Mohamed's computer.

The prosecution filing also describes what the defense says was an unrecorded interview Mohamed gave to the FBI. Mohamed "admitted that he had made the video so that 'those brothers' in Arabic countries could use the knowledge which he provided to them in that video against the infidels and invaders of their countries," the prosecution filing states. "He further identified American military forces as among that category of targets."

The defense says this "invocation of American military forces as a so-called target is a shameless exploitation of the national sentiment in the country over the war in Iraq."

Moreover, defense attorneys Linda Moreno and Lyann Goudie maintain that "there is no mention of American military forces, infidels or invaders" in the YouTube video.

The prosecution court papers were filed in response to a defense motion to dismiss the charge that Mohamed was trying to help terrorists by teaching or demonstrating the use of explosives.

The defense maintains the video is protected under the First Amendment.

But the prosecution argues that it was an incitement to violence. "Mohamed's video was not at all theoretical but practical;" the prosecution wrote, "he intended by it that 'the brethren will use this to make explosions, their explosions, I mean, from a distance' instead of doing so in a manner that would 'blow-up themselves.'"

"This video contains a matter of information, not incitement," the defense reply states. "While many may not approve of the character of the information, it is nonetheless protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution."

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