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Document: Suspect considered coordinated attacks on multiple targets
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DALLAS – The Jordanian teenager accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper created a seven-minute video that he believed would be given to 9-11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, an FBI special agent testified during a probable cause hearing Monday.
Hosam Maher Husein Smadi, 19, is being held on a charge of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction in connection with a planned Sept. 24 terror strike on the 60-story Fountain Place. Federal Magistrate Irma C. Ramirez ruled after the 40-minute hearing that there was sufficient evidence to hold Smadi for further proceedings.The lone witness was FBI Supervisory Special Agent Thomas D. Petrowski, who runs the counterterrorism squad at the Dallas office of the FBI.Petrowski said the FBI first became aware of Smadi in January 2009 among a group of extremists online.Smadi landed on the FBI’s radar, Petrowski testified, because “he was here on U.S. soil and wished to carry out an attack that lacked only the tools.” Petrowski also told Assistant U.S. Attorney Dayle Elieson that Smadi was in a hotel room with an undercover FBI employee when he made the video, which he believed would be delivered to bin Laden. The agent did not discuss the contents of the video, but said the FBI had recorded the encounter.Smadi’s attorney, Peter Fleury, a senior litigator at the Federal Public Defender's Office in Fort Worth, asked Petrowski about the three undercover FBI employees who communicated with Smadi until Sept. 24, when he parked an SUV that he believed contained a bomb beneath Fountain Place.Petrowski identified them as two language experts and a “peace officer” working for the FBI, but said they were not FBI agents.A federal arrest warrant affidavit prepared by Petrowski and released last month says Smadi met the peace officer, who was posing as a low-level operative of an al Qaeda sleeper cell, in Dallas on Sept. 24.The two drove to pick up the SUV, which Smadi believed carried a bomb, and Smadi then drove the vehicle to an underground garage at Fountain Place, the affidavit says.Smadi left the vehicle, walked to where the peace officer was parked and they drove several blocks away, where he tried to denote the bomb with a cell phone. He was then arrested.Fleury also asked whether the government had given Smadi money, and Petrowski testified that the peace officer may have bought meals or cigarettes for him during their meetings.The government is still analyzing Smadi’s computers and electronics devices, Petrowski testified.Smadi, who has been kept in federal custody in Seagoville, wore a bright orange jump suit to the hearing. His handcuffs were removed during the proceedings, and he spoke to no one except an Arabic translator who sat behind him and leaned forward to speak during the hearing.No date was immediately set for the next hearing.
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