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TAMPA — The trial of an Egyptian college student facing federal explosives charges was delayed Monday — the day it had been scheduled to start — when prosecutors filed a last-minute appeal.
Youssef Samir Megahed, 22, was released on $200,000 bail later Monday, the first time he has been free since he and a fellow student were arrested after a traffic stop in South Carolina in August.
Deputies say they found explosives in the trunk of their car. Attorneys for Megahed and Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed say the materials were merely ingredients for homemade fireworks.
Prosecutors are appealing a judge's ruling made Friday that excluded certain video evidence from the trial.
U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday ruled that videos of armed rockets found on Megahed's home computer were revealed too late by prosecutors to be used at trial, and that a video stored on Mohamed's laptop is irrelevant to Megahed's case.
It wasn't clear when Megahed's trial will start.
Mohamed, who is to be tried separately in July, faces terrorism-related counts stemming from the video found on his computer, which prosecutors say shows him demonstrating how to convert a remote-controlled toy into a bomb detonator.
