2 Students Sentenced for Visa Violations

Two foreign students detained by U.S. officials in their hunt for members of the Al Qaeda terrorist network were sentenced in Los Angeles federal court Monday for visa violations.

Ahmed Nawaz Atta, a 19-year-old Pakistani studying computer science at Irvine Valley College, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge William Rea to the two months he had served in custody.

Atta, who now faces deportation, was accused of lying about his immigration status when he took a job at Fry’s Electronics. Foreign students are barred from taking jobs in the United States without permission from the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

In court Monday, he said he was forced to find work because his father could no longer support him in the United States.

Another student, Sami Med Fathi ben Hafaiedh, 28, described a similar predicament when he appeared for sentencing Monday before U.S. District Judge Manuel Real on charges of lying about his student visa.

Hafaiedh, enrolled at an English language school, apologized for breaking the law, but said he was forced to do so because of economic necessity.

A native of Tunisia, Hafaiedh was picked up in an immigration raid on a Glendale food market after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Real sentenced him to six months in prison. Afterward, Mary Kelly, a federal public defender, expressed disappointment with the sentence. She had asked for a shorter sentence.

Hafaiedh and Atta will be turned over to immigration authorities for deportation after their release.

Before being charged with criminal violations, the two men had been ordered deported after a hearing by an INS administrative law judge.

In view of the deportation orders, defense lawyers argued that prosecuting Atta and Hafaiedh on criminal charges served no purpose and represented a departure from past practice at the U.S. attorney’s office.

The two defendants were among more than 1,100 people, mostly young men with Middle Eastern backgrounds, who were taken into custody under broad, new powers given to the Justice Department to investigate suspected terrorists after the September attacks.

Neither man was ever linked in court proceedings to Al Qaeda or any terrorist group.