TAMPA: Two US university students from Egypt were shocked to learn a grand jury had indicted them on federal explosives charges and were expecting instead to be exonerated at an upcoming South Carolina court hearing on state charges, relatives said.
Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 24, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, of the University of South Florida were indicted Friday.
They were stopped Aug. 4 with what authorities described as pipe bombs in their car in South Carolina. They were near a US Navy base where enemy combatants have been held.
The men were indicted by a grand jury in Florida on charges of carrying explosive materials across state lines. Mohamed also faces terrorism-related charges of teaching and demonstrating how to use the explosives. The men were held on state charges while the FBI investigated.
Prosecutors in South Carolina plan to drop the charges there.
Megahed s father, 60-year-old Samir Megahed, said Saturday he and his son have cooperated with federal investigators, but the situation keeps getting worse.
They want us to say what they want to hear, he told The Tampa Tribune. They want the stories they have in mind. It s all in their imagination.
