Posted on 09/13/2002 11:51:10 AM PDT by EggsAckley
Federal investigators checking 3 men who reported ``America would cry on 9/13.'' By DAVID GREEN AND DAVID KIDWELL dgreen@herald.com
TIM CHAPMAN/MIAMI HERALD
A bomb squad member attaches a string to an item in one of the suspected cars on Alligator Alley where the two cars were stopped and three men were detained. A robot is at the back of the cars.
Three medical students of Middle Eastern descent who were stopped as suspected terrorists on Alligator Alley early Friday morning remained detained after they were overheard in a Georgia restaurant vowing to make America ``cry on 9/13.''
Federal sources involved in the investigation said they believe the three men - all U.S. citizens - were playing a stupid joke on another restaurant patron who gave them a suspicious look.
All three were on their way from Illinois to take medical training in Miami.
Federal sources said the men could be released as early as today with a ticket for blowing the I-75 toll booth near Naples.
Alligator Alley was closed to traffic all day Friday as explosives investigators searched for any kinds of devices in the two cars. Those searches had come up empty as of 1 p.m. Friday afternoon.
''It appears there isn't a terrorist threat as it relates to destrutive devices in the cars,'' Gov. Jeb Bush said at a Miami news conference Friday. ``If this was a hoax, my hope is these people would be prosecuted.''
One federal source said although there is a federal statute against making terrorist threats, it remained unclear on Friday exactly what transpired Thursday morning in a Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Ga.
Eunice Stone, a nurse, told authorities and Fox News Channel she was sitting in a booth next to the three men shortly about 10:30 a.m. when she overheard the men laughing about 9/11 and making comments like ''if we don't have enough to bring it down I have contacts'' and ``if they're mourning 9/11 what are they going to do about 9/13?''
In an interview on Fox News Channel on Friday, Stone said she thought they might be playing a hoax.
''We hesitated to call anyone because we thought, they're just playing us,'' Stone said. ``But then I thought what's the right thing to do? If it turns out it's nothing, then it's nothing.
''I hope I haven't done something wrong,'' she said. ``I hope I haven't caused someone problems that really didn't do anything because I wouldn't want to cause someone problems. But at the same time I thought what if they really are doing something and I caught them?''
Stone collected license tag numbers and called Georgia authorities, who issued an alert for the two cars.
The odyssey ended after midnight Friday morning when a Collier County sheriff's deputy pulled over both cars after they blew throught the Naples toll booth. However, several other things conspired to escalate the incident even further.
According to police sources, all three men at first were uncooperative - denying consent to search the car.
''It was probably not the right time for them to be copping an attitude with police,'' said one federal law enforcement source who was up all night monitoring the investigation. ``But that's exactly what happened.''
Then, two separate police dogs alerted to the presence of incendiary materials in both cars, and the license tag on one of the cars wasn't registered to the vehicle.
Authorities are still investigating the license tag issue, but said Friday they do not suspect the three in a terrorist plot.
The Miami-Dade Police Department's explosives robot has been called in to further examine the cars and their contents.
According to investigators, all three men -- a Lebanese, a Jordanian and an Iranian - are U.S. citizens - one U.S. born.
Investigators have not found any links between the men and al-Qaeda -- the international terrorist organization beleived to responsible for the World Trade Center attacks -- nor have their names turned up on any federal terrorist watch lists, the sources said.
The three men apparently were enroute to South Miami to attend a medical college.
The money could then be donated to a veterans' relief fund or other such organization. These idiots can then spend the rest of the "medical careers" paying off the debt their indescretion has incurred and thinking about how lucky they were that worse did not happen to them.
EggsAckley! How would they be treated in say.......Iraq?
one license plate did not belong to one of the cars?...
laughing about 9/11 and joking about further mourning?...
blowing thru a toll booth?...
incooperative when stopped?...
methinks they don't need to be let go so quickly - but that's just my common sense talking.
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