FBI says ‘bombs’ were fireworks

Two Egyptian college students arrested near a Navy weapons station in South Carolina last year were carrying homemade fireworks, as they claimed, not dangerous explosives, the FBI has determined.

Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 26, and Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, have been in jail since sheriff’s deputies found what they called bomb-making materials in the trunk of their car during a traffic stop near Charleston, S.C.

The FBI report was submitted to the court Wednesday by Megahed’s public defender as part of a motion seeking bail.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office declined to comment Thursday.

The two men, both engineering students at the University of South Florida, were indicted on federal charges of illegally transporting explosives.

The FBI report said that the items found in the car -- PVC pipe containing a mixture of sugar, potassium nitrate and cat litter -- were ingredients for a “pyrotechnic mixture” that burned but didn’t explode.

“Simply put, based on the FBI expert testing, the PVC pipes found in the trunk of the vehicle were harmless pyrotechnic materials similar to those found in fireworks and road flares,” wrote public defender Adam Allen in a motion asking a judge to reconsider letting Megahed out on bail.

Allen said the testing corroborated Mohamed’s claim that he was interested in fireworks and bought ingredients to make his own “sugar rockets.” Allen said the materials didn’t meet the legal definition of explosives.

Still problematic for Mohamed is a video found on a laptop in the car in which, prosecutors contend, he demonstrated how to convert a remote-control toy into a detonator for a bomb.

An FBI affidavit said he told authorities that he made the video “to assist those persons in Arabic countries to defend themselves against the infidels invading their countries.”