Posted on 09/14/2002 4:37:09 PM PDT by AmericanInTokyo
Did anyone else notice the very intriguing similarity between these two cases, about a year apart? Take a look!
NAPLES, Florida (CNN) --The Georgia woman who prompted Friday's terror scare was "flat-out lying" when she told authorities she overheard three Muslim men at a restaurant laughing about September 11 and making suspicious comments, one of the men said late Friday.
"How many other people witnessed this event that supposedly took place, first of all? Did they ask the server who served us? Did they ask anybody else that was in the restaurant? How is it that one person can pick up a phone and make any statement that they will and we end up [in custody]?" said Ayman Gheith at a rest area shortly after they were released. "What she has said is obviously a lie."
Gheith said he and his two friends -- Kambiz Butt and Omer Choudhary -- were all medical students heading to a nine-week course in Miami, and that's what they were talking about at the Shoney's restaurant in Calhoun, Georgia.
Gheith added: "I have one message, I think it's time for us as Americans to put down our big sticks and pick up our books and read about other people and read about what they believe before we jump to conclusions."
In a later interview with CNN, the other two men, Butt and Choudhary, also categorically denied the woman's account, saying they never made any reference to September 11 in their conversations.
In the end, authorities said there was no threat, the cars were cleared, Interstate 75 reopened and the men were released. The three men climbed in their vehicles around 6 p.m. and drove away, 17 hours after they were pulled over.
The scare began when Eunice Stone said she overheard the three Muslim men at a Shoney's restaurant Thursday morning making suspicious comments. At one point, Stone said the bearded man said if Americans "were sad on 9/11, wait until 9/13."
Asked if she thought the men were playing a joke on her, Stone said it crossed her mind. "They were just kind of jovial about it," she said in an interview with Fox News. "My son said, 'Oh Momma, they're just messing with you.' Then I thought about it, and I said, 'Well, you know, they shouldn't be messing around like that. That's a cruel thing to celebrate September the 11th, and to think that that was something to be happy about."
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AND:
[OCTOBER 17, 2002 SAN DIEGO]
Student: Attack praised, Conversation of three Saudi students about Sept. 11 events overheard in library
By Jason Williams
On Saturday, Sept. 22, Zewdalem Kebede, a political science senior and native Ethiopian (now American citizen), was studying in the Reserve Book Room in Love Library at SDSU. Nearby, a group of Saudi Arabian students sat talking in Arabic -- a language Kebede speaks fluently, having learned it in his native country.
He was attracted to their conversation when the topic shifted to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"They started talking about the Sept. 11 action," he said. "And with that action they were very pleased. They were happy. And they were regretting of missing the 'Big House.'
Kebede tried to continue studying, attempting to ignore the students, but finally he approached their table and spoke to them. "Guys, what you are talking is unfair. How do you feel happy when those 5 to 6,000 people are buried in two or three buildings?" Kebede said. "They are under the rubble or they became ash.
Another Saudi student approached from a nearby table and spoke to Kebede in English, asking if he had a problem with the other students speaking in Arabic.
Kebede told him there was no problem, and the man asked if Kebede was going to threaten them, to which he replied he was not and returned to his table.
After about 30 minutes, two university police officers approached Kebede and asked to speak with him. Kebede related his story of what had occurred.
University Police said both parties involved in the disturbance were cautioned and statements were taken from one of the Saudi Arabian men and Kebede.
Because the Saudi students are listed as victims in the report and the case is non-criminal, their names cannot be released.
University Police Crime Prevention Specialist Marc Fox said that it basically boils down to "a free speech issue."
"It's horrific, yet legal," Fox said.
All agencies are operating at a "heightened state" since the Sept. 11 attacks, Fox said, and a background investigation is conducted in any instances resembling a threat to see if a statement was "more than just rhetoric."
On Sept. 27, The Daily Aztec printed a crime brief detailing the verbal harassment of four Saudi Arabian men in the Love Library Reserve Book Room. In the brief, Kebede was described as a "foreign national" who accused the men of being connected to the Sept. 11 attacks.
Kebede received a letter from the university's Center for Student Rights, dated Sept. 25, requesting that he set up a meeting to discuss his conduct in the Reserve Book Room. The letter stated that he had allegedly been "verbally abusive to other students" and that he had three days to respond or else face possible sanctions.
"What have I done to these Arab guys? I have done nothing," Kebede said. "How can they be happy when innocent people just perished? Vanished by the cruel actions of their own brothers.
"It's sad, that's what I told them. Of this am I going to be charged and penalized with a warning or a probation or expelling from school? No, damn. No one would do that.
"I haven't committed any wrong."
Muslim Student Association President Omar Behnawa has been watching for the backlash on campus, and has yet to see any episodes of hate or anti-U.S. sentiment.
"I have no reason to doubt that it happened," Behnawa said about Kebede's experience. "I'm saying that it's a very sick thing. But I could possibly see that happening."
"I'm naturalized American. I have taken an oath to live to protect this country, so that is my part to do -- for that I am happy," Kebede said. "I am an honest citizen for this country. I showed those guys that there are people who love America, who defend America. That's what I showed. "Is that a crime?"
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My take: Gee, one wonders, who was telling the lies, American citizens Stone and Kebede, or the sordid individuals they had overheard and who are now off the hook, whose clever liberal PC/PR apparatus has ramped up with an "I AM AN AMERICAN!" National Guilt Campaign now that the damage has been done and the suspects have left the scene???
Part of me feels that there is something there, though; why did the explosive sniffing dogs react immediately? I hope that the FBI is watching them and keeping track of credit card usage, etc. Unfortunately, I fear that there are more than a few muslim US citizens who are awaiting orders to launch an attack, like those Mohammeds that just got busted up in Buffalo. It is encouraging to me (if true) that they were initially reported by members of the muslim community. I want to believe that most American muslims are patriotic non-terrorists, but the fundamentalist flavor is Islam is just freaking crazy. I think that it is time that we put a moratorium on middle eastern visas to this country; our insane political correctness is going to be our undoing...
On Sept. 27, The Daily Aztec printed a crime brief detailing the verbal harassment of four Saudi Arabian men
So free speech extends to those who would threaten our safety, but not to those who would stop them? Neat.
Maybe we'd do better if we characterized these conversations among terrorist wannabees as "verbal abuse" or "verbal harassment".
In Islam, under the Sharia, it is not just the truth of the matter as discovered with physical or other cooboration, it is also the number of witnesses you can come up with.
These guys use this to persecute innocent people, and to dominate women. Four witnesses to a rape are required for a conviction for instance.
These guys live in America and our evidentiary rules were not dictated by Mohammad, ancient Arab sages, or religious authorities in Cairo in the 9th century. They know that yet they reject the legitimacy of American evidentiary rules.
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