Mistrial in San Diego Student’s 9/11 Perjury Case

A judge declared a mistrial Thursday after a jury deadlocked on whether a San Diego student lied about his associations with a Sept. 11 hijacker in the days after the terrorist attacks.

The jury in federal court in New York City could not decide whether Osama Awadallah, 25, lied to a grand jury investigating the attacks after an old phone number of his was found in a hijacker’s car.

U.S. District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin declared the mistrial after the jury indicated in a note that further deliberations would not result in a verdict.

Awadallah declined to comment afterward. His lawyer, Jesse Berman, said the mistrial “shows that there are doubts to the government’s case.” He said Awadallah was disappointed that there was not a full acquittal.

Prosecutors asked Scheindlin for a new trial date, but one was not immediately set.

Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for prosecutors, declined to comment.

The jury had sent a note to the judge asking that the lone holdout be kicked off the panel. Before declaring a mistrial, the judge interviewed the juror and concluded “there’s just dissent in this jury.”

“It happens every day of the week throughout the country,” the judge said.

The holdout juror, David Lipshultz, 49, of New York said outside court that the case lacked motive, especially since Awadallah immediately admitted that he knew one hijacker and seemed to have no reason to hedge about his knowledge of a second hijacker.

The jury forewoman, Marianne Delise, said outside court: “We did our best and put our hearts into it.”

Several other jurors declined to comment.

The case against Awadallah, a San Diego State student, had a bumpy road even before the trial began three weeks ago.

Awadallah was detained as a material witness in the terrorism probe after FBI agents went to his San Diego apartment nine days after the attacks to ask him about his associations with Nawaf Alhazmi, a hijacker on the plane that hit the Pentagon.

The government alleged that he admitted his associations with Alhazmi but initially denied to a grand jury that he knew Alhazmi’s friend Khalid Almihdhar, another hijacker.

In 2002, Scheindlin tossed out two perjury charges against Awadallah, saying the government had used “duress or coercion” to get him to consent to FBI interviews and a lie detector test.

The charges were reinstated by the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which said a jury could find that Awadallah was not forthcoming about what he knew about the hijackers.

The jury was repeatedly warned that Awadallah was not accused of participating in terrorism.