Last year, the customs dept. arrested a saudi national at Logan Airport in Boston. The man had attempted to bring through customs a knapsack containing five firecrackers. When questioned about them, the man lied. He was arrested and charged with attempted smuggling of an explosive device, and lying to a US customs agent. The man was given bail, and left to return to Saudi Arabia. He did return for trial, and was found guilty.
astro
January 23, 2005, 4:45am
2
Your info is apparently wrong. He was acquitted.
Saudi charged for firecrackers in luggage
US jailed Saudi again after jury’s acquittal
Almohandis, who works at a hospital in Riyadh, was arrested on Jan. 3 when he arrived in Boston for a training seminar and inspectors at Logan International Airport found the sparklers in a side pocket of his backpack. He was charged with carrying an incendiary device on an aircraft and lying to inspectors about it.
He remained jailed for three weeks and then was released on bail, under the condition that he remain under so-called house arrest at an apartment in Boston, with an electronic bracelet strapped to his ankle.
After a weeklong trial and two days of deliberations, a federal jury announced just after 4 p.m. on Friday that it had found Almohandis not guilty of the charges. Jurors said they believed Almohandis, who had testified that he didn’t know how the sparklers got into his backpack and initially thought they were artists’ crayons when an inspector found them.
Almohandis’s wife testified that she had packed her husband’s bag and didn’t put the sparklers inside. She told jurors she didn’t know how they got there, but said that she had come home from the hospital with their new baby the day before her husband left on his trip and that visitors, including children, had stopped by.
Attorney Miriam Conrad, a federal defender who represents Almohandis, said that she told him to go out and have a nice dinner with his wife after his acquittal and that she would arrange for him to fly home yesterday.
Almohandis said he went to the Barking Crab on Northern Avenue with his wife and father-in-law for dinner and then spent several hours at the Boston hotel where his father-in-law was staying. He and his wife returned to his apartment just after midnight and were greeted within minutes by the agents, he said.
“I certainly hope that it wasn’t vindictive on the part of Customs,” said Conrad, adding she couldn’t understand why Customs hadn’t arrested Almohandis at the courthouse if they thought he had to be taken into custody immediately.
A spokesman for the US attorney’s office declined to comment.
But Almohandis said he got some help during his ordeal from the prosecutor who handled his case. Assistant US Attorney Gregory Moffatt, who had prosecuted Almohandis, went to Almohandis’s apartment at 2:30 a.m. Saturday to collect his wallet and credit cards and delivered them to him in jail. “He came to the jail and apologized,” Almohandis said. “He promised me the next night I would be in Saudi Arabia.”