Goose Creek Terror Suspect - A Family In Despair

September 3, 2007

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The Tampa Tribune attempts to tug at the heart-strings of it’s readers with this story that focuses on the family of one of the Goose Creek terror suspects. The real story however; is that the case against these two continues to build. That’s a story worth covering.

In a jail chapel, with two renderings of the Last Supper overhead, the family of a 21-year-old University of South Florida student gathered around him Saturday. His father did most of the talking, as they delivered the bad news. The accusations that he and a fellow student had a pipe bomb in the trunk of their Toyota Camry as they drove near a Naval weapons station had turned into a federal indictment. Their hopes that state charges, filed by South Carolina authorities, would be dropped after a hearing this month were dashed. Instead, the two now face the likelihood they’ll be held in federal custody without bail, their attorneys said.

Youssef Megahed’s reaction was shock, and then despair, his family said. Sitting in solitary confinement, he’s terrified of the warnings FBI agents have given him and his family - that he’ll be held interminably in a military prison like Guantanamo Bay.

Adding to their anxiety was a quote in the Charleston newspaper Saturday from the local sheriff, predicting Megahed and fellow student Ahmed Mohamed soon will be moved from this jail in Berkeley County to the brig on the nearby Naval complex. The Megaheds know the brig is used to hold prisoners the president has deemed “enemy combatants.”

Worse for Megahed’s father, Samir, was the moment he was leaving and saw Mohamed talking to his own attorney. Mohamed, teary, had also just heard about the indictment.

He hugged and kissed Samir and asked him to deliver a message to his own father in Egypt: “Tell my father I am not going to meet him in this life again.”

Mohamed, 24, fears he will be imprisoned longer than his father will be alive, Samir said.

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