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USF Grad Gets 6-Month Term After Posing With Rifle

News Channel 8 photo by INDIRA LEVINE

Local Muslim activist Ahmed Bedier speaks to the media along with Anissa Zekkari, Karim Moussaoui's mother, after Moussaoui was sentenced to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for possessing a firearm in violation of his student visa.

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By SHERRI ACKERMAN | The Tampa Tribune
and VALERIE KALFRIN | The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 14, 2008

Updated: 07/14/2008 08:08 pm

TAMPA - A Moroccan native here on a student visa will serve three months in prison for shooting a rifle with friends at a local gun range.

Karim Moussaoui, 28, was convicted in April of a federal weapons charge for possessing a firearm, which violates his visa. Moussaoui said he was simply posing with the rifle for pictures.

U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore didn't buy it.

"He possessed it, he fired it, he shouldered it three times," the judge said Monday afternoon after reviewing a videotape obtained from the shooting range.

Whittemore sentenced Moussaoui to six months at Coleman Correctional Facility, about 70 miles northwest of Tampa. Moussaoui will get credit for three months already served in Pinellas and Citrus county jails.

The judge also fined Moussaoui $1,000.

Moussaoui will not fight any effort to deport him once he serves his sentence, said his attorney, DeeAnn Athan. She said after the hearing that she will appeal the sentence.

Her client's arrest and subsequent charges are based on the government's assumption that Moussaoui is implicated with others involved in terrorist acts, she said.

He is being prosecuted, Athan said, for the "innocent transitory possession of a firearm."

Moussaoui's parents insist their son never fired the rifle.

"My son never shoot that gun," Hamou Moussaou said. "He was just curious."

Moussaoui, a University of South Florida graduate, had gone to the Shoot Straight Tampa shooting range last summer with a friend, Youssef Megahed. Moussaoui admitted to holding a .22-caliber rifle Megahed had rented while posing for pictures.

Megahed is a legal, permanent resident of the United States, which allowed him to posses and rent the weapon. Moussaoui's status as a nonimmigrant alien made his handling of the gun illegal.

Moussaoui testified he had no idea his actions were illegal.

Investigators found snapshots of Moussaoui holding the firearm when they confiscated Megahed's computer during a traffic stop in South Carolina on Aug. 4.

Deputies had pulled over Megahed and another former USF student, Ahmed Mohamed, after becoming suspicious of their car and, according to authorities, found explosive materials in the trunk. Both were charged with transporting explosives.

In June, Mohamed pleaded guilty as part of an agreement to a charge he provided support to terrorists when he posted an Internet video showing how to detonate a bomb with a remote-controlled toy.

No date has been set for his sentencing. Megahed's trial is on hold while prosecutors appeal a judge's ruling regarding the use of certain evidence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Monk, who argued that Moussaoui should serve more time, described instances in which he said Moussaoui lied during trial and to federal agents.

The attorney also shared an arrest report in 2001 that showed Moussaoui violated his visa on another occasion by working at a local gas station. Police arrested him on a misdemeanor charge of selling cigarettes to a minor.

Moussaoui's attorney, Athan, said her client was merely helping a friend who worked at the station and had gone to the back.

Monk also attempted to link Moussaoui to Mohamed's video, saying Moussaoui had seen the video and ultimately had alternative motives for being at the shooting range.

"I'm stunned," Athan said when the judge asked her to respond. "So we stand here at the final hour and Mr. Monk drops this bomb on us."

Whittemore agreed, saying Monk's argument was inappropriate for a sentencing hearing. But the judge did find merit in some of Monk's arguments.

"I'm absolutely convinced," Whittemore said to Moussaoui, "that you did not testify credibly to the jury."

Editor's note: Ahmed Bedier was identified incorrectly in a photo caption accompanying an earlier version of this story.

Reporter Sherri Ackerman can be reached at (813) 259-7144 or sackerman@tampatrib.com

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