Agents Deny Mistreating Student in Terror Probe

Federal agents testified Friday that a Jordanian student cooperated with authorities voluntarily and was not mistreated before being held as a material witness in the investigation of the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

Osama Awadallah, 21, was later charged with perjury after he denied knowing one of the suspected hijackers of the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon.

U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered the hearing in federal court in Manhattan to determine whether there was merit to Awadallah’s allegations that he was unlawfully arrested and searched, denied access to his lawyer and abused by officers while in prison.

In an 83-page opinion issued in January ordering the hearing, the judge raised the possibility that Awadallah’s grand jury testimony may have had an “illegitimate purpose” and may have been conducted under harsh conditions while the defendant was shackled to a chair.

“All of this occurred while Awadallah was held as a material witness--not as a defendant accused of criminal conduct,” Scheindlin stressed.

“In sum, whether Awadallah’s allegations are true and whether the resulting grand jury testimony may now be used against him is a question that must be considered,” she concluded.

Prosecutors, seeking to convince the judge that nothing improper occurred, called as witnesses many of the FBI agents who first had contact with Awadallah, a computer sciences student at Grossmont College in El Cajon, Calif., when he came to the attention of authorities.

Awadallah’s phone number was found in the glove compartment of a car used by Nawaf Alhazmi, who authorities say was aboard the plane that struck the Pentagon. The car was later found abandoned in the parking lot of a Washington-area airport.

Aurelia Alston, the FBI agent who headed the team of investigators that went to Awadallah’s apartment, said she was questioning one of his roommates when Awadallah was brought into the apartment after being intercepted in the parking lot outside.

Brian Rielly, another FBI agent, said he started to question Awadallah in the parking lot.

“It was a cooperative meeting. He was prepared to answer questions,” Rielly said.

Rielly said Awadallah signed forms consenting to a search of his apartment and the car he was driving when he entered the parking lot. He said Awadallah voluntarily agreed to travel to the San Diego field office for further questioning.

“I informed Mr. Awadallah he was not under arrest,” Rielly testified, adding that the trip to the field office was cordial and they talked about the significance of the prayer service that had just taken place in the apartment.

At the FBI field office, Awadallah revoked the permission he gave for the search of one of the two cars he owned, stating he didn’t fully understand his rights. Rielly said the search of that car was halted.

Teofilo Weston, a San Diego detective who accompanied the FBI agents to the apartment, told the court that Awadallah gave him his e-mail address when he requested it while they sat on a couch in the apartment.

The picture of Awadallah that emerged during the testimony of the investigators was of a person cooperating with authorities who acted friendly--a portrait Jesse Berman, one of Awadallah’s lawyers, sought to refute.

Berman sought to characterize the agents as polite but firmly guiding Awadallah down the path to an interrogation room even though he was not arrested.

He was held as a material witnesses the next day and later brought to New York, where he testified before a grand jury Oct. 15. Awadallah was indicted on charges of lying to the grand jury when he claimed he didn’t know Khalid Almihdhar, another suspected hijacker, who lived with Alhazmi in San Diego.

Awadallah did tell the grand jury that he knew Alhazmi and saw him as many as 40 times in the vicinity of San Diego from about April 2000 until December of that year. He identified Alhazmi from a series of photographs.

In her opinion setting the stage for the hearing, Scheindlin said a key question is whether the FBI agents improperly arrested Awadallah. She noted that he appeared “neither recalcitrant nor reluctant” when he went before the grand jury and said he could have been the subject of a “perjury trap.”