Posted on 05/21/2006 4:31:37 PM PDT by Flavius
AMPA - 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.
The prosecutor said neither man carried identification when they were arrested at Wharton High School, and authorities haven't had an opportunity to gather background information beyond a check of state records.
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.
Bedier called the court's decision to revoke bond an overreaction and tied to the men being Arabic and Muslim.
"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.
"Both arrived in the country six months ago and are enrolled at the English Language Institute at USF."
And in all that time, they never, ever saw a yellow school bus and could not understand what it was.
BULL....
Kudos to the Judge who took appropriate action to hold these two dry-run frontmen.
Okay, Bedier, why would they lie about being from Morrocco?
Now, about university students who don't know what a school bus is...this stinks out loud.
But, but, but they're members of that religion of peace. Surely they don't mean any harm (see various links for the world-wide upsurg in rapes and sexual assualts by muzzies on non-believers).
These dudes have been riding a horse with only one rocker.
He's half right. It's not an overreaction.
I think they wanted to play "Airplane Into the Building" but were afraid of heights.
For freakin out loud!
For once, we can thank the media for getting the word out on this pair. If this hadn't been publicized, they'd already be reporting to OBL.
With them being in their early 20's, the substitute driver might have just thought they were high school students. They obviously knew enough to lie to the LE and not carry ID. They also knew exactly where the bus was going to stop to pick up kids and had probably staked it out in hopes of one day getting a driver who didn't know the kids. As I said the other day, it's a darn shame but we had to have a talk with our kids about this and what to do just in case.
Maybe they didn't have the funding for the 'car' portion of a 'car-bomb'.
The same statement is true for Atta and company also!
SA... soon to be a glow-in-the-dark galss parking lot!
Not a word in this story about the fact that one of the men was wearing a black trench coat on a 90 degree day. No, that's not suspicious! (sarc)
I still do not understand why the bus moved 10 feet after these two guys got on it.
they were maybe small in stature and got in with a group or kids same size
Take them out behind the court room and shoot them. They can always clean up the details later.
Related link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1635606/posts
Actually, it is absolutely right. It is about time we started treating young Saudi men differently. Reality requires that we do so.
When they were jabbering in Arabic and laughing, what do you suppose they were talking about. I would bet you dollars to donuts the conversation went something like, "Look at this dumb kufirs sweating because they think were a couple of terrorists, ha ha!"
Well, who's laughing now?
BTW, how much would it cost to send a couple of USF professors to Suadi to teach English over there, instead of having their people come here?
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