Atty: Profiling Led to Explosives Arrest

TAMPA — Evidence used to jail a college student on explosives charges should be thrown out because authorities racially profiled the man, his attorney argued in court documents filed Friday.

Youssef Samir Megahed, 21, was a passenger in a car with a fellow University of South Florida student when they were stopped for speeding near a Charleston, S.C., Navy weapons station in August. Megahed's attorney contends both men, who are of Egyptian descent, were further detained and illegally searched based on "racial profiling."

Authorities said they found ammunition and materials to make pipe bombs in the students' car.

Deputies referred to Megahed and Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed in radio communications as members of the "Taliban" and "graduates of suicide bomber school," Megahed's attorney wrote.

The motion states that some of the remarks were made by Berkeley County Deputy Lamar Blakely, who found much of the evidence that is the basis of the government's case.

Blakely had no right to detain the men after determining that both had valid identification and no outstanding warrants, according to the court documents. Instead, he was acting on a "racist premise," wrote James W. Smith III, an assistant federal public defender.

Blakely could not be reached by telephone for comment at the sheriff's office on Friday afternoon.

Federal prosecutors have presented no evidence indicating that the men planned an attack. The students claimed they were on a sightseeing trip to Carolina beaches.

Mohamed, 26, also faces terrorism-related charges for allegedly making and posting on the Internet a video demonstrating how to convert a remote-control toy into a detonator for a bomb.

Both have pleaded not guilty and are being held without bond.

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