Posted on 05/20/2006 3:52:09 PM PDT by STARWISE
Two Saudi men were arrested Friday after they boarded a school bus and rode to Wharton High School in New Tampa.
Students on the bus became alarmed, as did the bus driver, who called ahead. Hillsborough County sheriff's deputies met the bus at the school and detained the men. No one was injured and nothing out of line occurred on the bus, deputies said.
Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, who lives in Apt. 302 in The Point apartments, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20 Monticello Gardens, Apt. 304-A, each were charged with trespassing on school property. Both remained in Orient Road Jail on Friday evening. Bail for each was set at $250.
"Both defendants gave several versions of the reason they took a school bus to a high school," said Hillsborough County sheriff's spokesman J.D. Callaway.
"They said they wanted to go to Wharton to look around, and then they said they wanted to go there to have some fun, and then they said they wanted to enroll in the English classes there," Callaway said.
"We're not sure if this was a situation of them just being new to this country, or if they were confused or what it was," Callaway said. "We were unsure as to exactly what the final reason was, but it did cause great concern for the students on the bus and for us. One of the guys was wearing shorts with a black trench coat."
While on the bus, the men laughed and spoke in Arabic, Callaway said.
(Excerpt) Read more at tbo.com ...
Right out of a martyr video!
Thanks. That thread I linked to, from here on FR, some posters made her out to be some kind of looney-toons. I remember the interview of her on FoxNews, she was really a decent woman.
I personally think if they did that we would likely turn several countries to glass and the survivors would have to go back to the stone age.
That doesn't mean I think they wouldn't do it if they can.
They have no survival instincts or reflexes and suffer from dear-headlight syndrome. Seriously.
Experts running these programs help the students get visas and transportation. The government pays the tuition, books, fees, room and board, etc.
6 months in-country in Deutschland I still didn't realize you could pee on the streets in any town in the country if you were willing to pay the 5 DM fine directly to the cops. Actually, I still didn't know about cops collecting fines on the spot ~ a really alien idea to an American GI.
I also thought an "open faced sandwich" was simply one short the second piece of bread.
I doubt a Saudi desert dweller would be any more astute than I was at roughly the same age.
Oh, yeah, we almost caught a streetcar in Vienna (while on a short leave) to the Ostbahnhof ~ that was in the former Soviet administered zone of occupation. No problem in that except it was a "local" and would have taken hours to get there ~ still, GIs can be silly ~ a week later a couple of them got caught on the big Ferris Wheel in Prater Park. Who knew it was a piece of junk?
Sorry, I really can relate to these young shepherds trying the yellow buses!
It sure would be handy to have a record of their telephone calls over the last six months or so wouldn't it? To know whom they were calling and who called them. Just to verify their stories and intentions. Don't you agree? I wonder if the government is doing anything like that ...
Yes he was.
IIRC, he relayed his suspicions to the flight attendant on the flight and mentioned it to a few other people, perhaps the FBI. But it wasn't until after 9/11 that he went straight to the authorities with what he knew and made a fuss until they listened.
Our enemies are not stupid. They are cunning and they are patient. We have to outdo them on every single level, which is difficult in a system like ours.
I am a huge James Woods fan, so I took notice when he talked about it.
Bingo. This was both a test and a low-level terrorist act.
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Judge Revokes Bail For Saudi Bus Riders
May 21, 2006
TAMPA - A judge revoked bail for two Saudi men arrested Friday for boarding a school bus and riding to Wharton High.
Initially, Mana Saleh Almanajam, 23, and Shaker Mohsen Alsidran, 20, were held in Orient Road Jail on bails of $250 each on misdemeanor trespassing charges. Circuit Judge Monica Sierra decided to hold them at a court appearance Saturday so investigators could dig deeper into their pasts.
A friend of the two University of South Florida students tried to post their bail Friday night, said Ahmed Bedier, Tampa director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, but a jail clerk told the friend that they couldn't be released because they were under an immigration hold until a hearing Saturday morning.
At the hearing, Sierra agreed with a prosecutor that she needed to know more about them before she could feel comfortable releasing them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They've been here for 6 months and have not learned the English word for SCHOOL (AS IN BUS) and they supposedly are going to a SCHOOL????? I don't buy it.
Contact the judge Monica Sierra and tell her that the blood of innocents will be on her hands if she releases these Saudis.
Monica Sierra
Office
800 E. Twiggs St.
Room 420
Tampa, FL 33602
Phone: (813) 272-5777
Almanajam and Alsidran appeared confused by the proceedings and smiled nervously as they stood behind a public defender's table.
Investigators say the men boarded a school bus at Fletcher Avenue and 42nd Street, sat down and began speaking in Arabic. Their behavior concerned the driver, a substitute, who alerted the school district.
The bus was met at Wharton High School by a swarm of officers from the sheriff's Homeland Security Division, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement's Regional Domestic Security Task Force, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI. "The only reason [this happened] is because of who they are, and that's wrong," he said. "How is it that they can say they can't find out who these kids are when they've searched their homes and found nothing? ... Thus far, it doesn't seem like they've been afforded their full rights for something as simple as getting on the wrong bus."
He questioned why the driver didn't tell them not to board if their appearance was suspicious.
Officials who questioned the men Friday said they at first said they were from Morocco but later admitted being from Saudi Arabia. Both arrived in the country six months ago and are enrolled at the English Language Institute at USF. Their reasons for getting on the bus ranged from wanting to enroll in easier English classes to having some fun.
Bedier said the men got on the bus out of a cultural misunderstanding.
"They don't have yellow school buses just for children in their home country," he said.
The judge scheduled a bond review hearing for Tuesday and asked that an Arabic interpreter be present. There was no interpreter Saturday."
Yeah right. It's got their attention -- or they're preparing for last year's hurricane and totally oblivious to this...
DHS and the FBI had no clue on these two. They were about to be released on $250 bail and would have been on a flight back to Syria or Saudi Arabia within hours if the judge hadn't revoked their bail. I hope they are now investigating their "friend" who tried to bail them out.
They've been here for six months. No mistaking a school bus for a city bus after being here that long. Maybe in the first week, but not six months later.
Black trench coat--someone wearing heavy clothing on a (sunny) summer day is a classic example of suspicious behavior.
Way confused here....how the heck were they able to get on the bus to begin with? Where my kids go to school, if it's not your normal bus, you're not getting on unless it was approved in writing by your parent, the school *and* the driver, the day before you need to get on the different bus,I don't care who you are. Oh yeah, and you have to BE A STUDENT. No exceptions....and I've tried on a couple of occasions in emergency situations. Unbelievable!!
This if frightening, and I don't trust these Saudis one iota! I consider this an act of terrorism, because they had to know they were frightening these children and the bus driver. Is it a coincidence they chose to ride the school bus on a day there was a substitute driver? This might well have been a practice run for these individuals, and our children are too important to take a chance that this was 'just a mistake'! I vote to deport them!
Typo...should be, This is frightening. Sorry!
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