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Saudi student found guilty in Texas terror plot
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari is escorted to his initial court appearance at the Mahon Federal Building in Lubbock, Texas, Friday, Feb. 25, 2011. (AP Photo/Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Zach Long) / AP /Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Zach Long
(AP) AMARILLO, Texas - A Saudi man accused of buying chemicals online and attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction was found guilty on Wednesday in federal court in Amarillo.
Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, who was legally in the U.S. on a student visa, was arrested in February 2011 after federal agents secretly searched his apartment near Texas Tech University in Lubbock and found bomb-making chemicals, wiring, a hazmat suit and clocks.
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Authorities also discovered Aldawsari's journal, handwritten in Arabic, in which he wrote he'd been planning a terror attack in the U.S. for years and that it was "time for jihad," or holy war, court documents show.
President Barack Obama was notified about the plot before Aldawsari's arrest.
He faces up to life in prison.
His attorneys claimed that because Aldawsari didn't have a bomb made or a target pinpointed, he couldn't have attempted to use a bomb.
On Feb. 1, 2011, Carolina Biological Supply of Burlington, N.C., a chemical company, reported a suspicious $435 order by Aldawsari to the FBI.
Separately, Con-way Freight, the shipping company, notified Lubbock police and the FBI the same day with similar suspicions because it appeared the order wasn't intended for commercial use.
Within weeks, federal agents had traced Aldawsari's other online purchases, discovered extremist Internet posts and secretly searched his off-campus apartment, computer and email accounts and read his diary, according to court records.
TNP, the chemical explosive that Aldawsari was suspected of trying to make, has approximately the same destructive power as TNT. FBI bomb experts said the amounts in the Aldawsari case would have yielded almost 15 pounds of explosives — about the same amount used per bomb in the London subway attacks that killed scores of people in July 2005.
Aldawsari entered the U.S. in October 2008 from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to study chemical engineering at Texas Tech, then transferred in early 2011 to nearby South Plains College, where he was studying business. A Saudi industrial company was paying his tuition and living expenses in the U.S.
The judge moved the trial to Amarillo earlier this year.
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giving visas and residency to citizens of middle eastern countries.
People come here as "students" and a few months later no one knows
where they are. You have a system where we are spending fortunes
in borrowed money to fight terrorism in these regions while at the
same time inviting citizens from there to come here and "study".
It makes as much sense as denouncing "hate crimes", as we welcome
to our country thousands of followers of a religion that is dedicated
to the eradication of Christians and Jews and the countries they
are from.
ALL people from Arab areas are NOT Muslims and do NOT want to kill us.
That is one of the stupidest arguments I've heard lately!
Where do you live?
We should have let him go stay with you and plan his terrorist activities.
The Texas case got far more press than it may have deserved. The FBI was all over this suspect, so we can rest assured finding one wannabe jihadi does not mean legions of others are lurking elsewhere.