Judge Says Student May Have Been Coerced
A judge suggested that a Jordanian student questioned by a grand jury while shackled to a chair may have been unjustly coerced before being charged with perjury in the Sept. 11 terror investigation.
Osama Awadallah, a 21-year-old student at Grossmont College in El Cajon, Calif., is charged with lying to a grand jury about his association with two suicide hijackers.
U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin noted that 20 FBI agents surrounded Awadallah when he was arrested on a San Diego street, and they later threatened not to release him until he took a lie-detector test.
The judge set a hearing for Feb. 15 on whether to throw out evidence.
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