Student Detained in Terrorist Probe Released on Bond

A San Diego college student accused of lying to a grand jury investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks returns home today, freed from federal custody in New York on Thursday after posting $500,000 bond.

Osama Awadallah, 21, is to return to San Diego, where family and friends had raised $50,000 cash--and turned over the title of an ice cream truck owned by his brother, Jamal--to secure the bond.

“I can’t describe it,” Awadallah said as he left the federal courtroom in New York. “It’s been three months.”

Randall B. Hamud, Awadallah’s lawyer in San Diego, said Awadallah will travel alone. FBI agents will take him to the airport today and see that he boards the flight home, Hamud said.

Awadallah, a Jordan native and a student at Grossmont College in El Cajon, was one of three men detained in San Diego as material witnesses about 10 days after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Awadallah testified before a grand jury that he knew one of the suicide hijackers. But he was accused of lying about his association with another member of the terrorist team that flew an airliner into the Pentagon.

Awadallah was not accused of participating in the attacks. But in arguing against bail in October, Assistant U.S. Atty. Robin Baker said, “By lying to the grand jury, the defendant’s acts promoted terrorism.”

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin set bail last month, noting that Awadallah had recanted the testimony in question at a subsequent grand jury appearance.

Scheindlin said the evidence against Awadallah is “not particularly strong.” She ruled that while out on bail, he must live with his brother, wear an electronic bracelet and report daily to a pretrial services officer.

“If he would jump [bail], not only would his family owe a half-million dollars, but [U.S. Atty. Gen. John] Ashcroft would be driving a 1971 Ford ice cream truck,” said Awadallah’s New York lawyer, Jesse Berman.

Berman has filed papers accusing federal marshals and jail guards of abusing Awadallah during his detention. Officials have refused to discuss the accusations.

Hamud said Jamal Awadallah had been trying to raise $15,000 from family members and friends in the U.S. to pay his brother’s legal bills, in addition to coming up with $50,000 for bail.

The attorney said some family members are so fearful of being accused by the FBI of having ties to terrorists that they have changed their telephone numbers.

After his arrest, Awadallah’s family issued a statement promising “to do whatever it takes to assist the authorities in their investigation.”