MIAMI: An Egyptian student who placed a video on the Internet showing how to convert toy cars into bomb detonators pleaded guilty Wednesday to providing material support to terrorists, the central Florida US attorney s office said.
Tampa, Florida resident and former University of South Florida engineering student Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, was arrested together with another Egyptian student on Aug. 4, 2007 for speeding in South Carolina near a US naval facility.
Police searching their car found sections of PVC pipe packed with potassium nitrate mixture and chunks of kitty litter, and a long length of safety fuse, which the court said were explosives.
They also discovered containers separately filled with gasoline and a potassium nitrate mixture.
Further investigation of Mohamed s laptop computer revealed information relating to the manufacture and use of bombs, rockets, and other explosives and several videos showing the use of such devices to attack and destroy manned United States military vehicles, the US attorney s office said in a statement.
Also on the computer was a 12-minute video Mohamed made showing how a remote-control toy car could be rewired to make a bomb detonator, which he had uploaded on the popular Youtube website, it said.
The federal prosecutor said that Mohamed told investigators later that he made the recording to teach martyrdoms and suiciders how to save themselves so they could continue to fight the invaders.
After pleading guilty in a plea agreement, Mohamed faces a maximum 15 years in prison and 250,000 dollars in fines. -AFP
