San Diego student pleads innocent to perjury

By Phil Hirschkorn
CNN Producer

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A 21-year-old Jordanian man entered a plea of not guilty Monday to charges of lying before a grand jury investigating the September terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Osama Awadallah, a permanent U.S. resident who has lived in San Diego for three years, allegedly lied twice to the grand jury last month about his knowledge of Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, whom the Justice Department has identified as two of the hijackers on board American Airlines Flight 77, which slammed into the Pentagon.

In testimony on October 10, Awadallah conceded seeing Alhazmi about 35 to 40 times in the San Diego area between April 2000 and January 2001 at Awadallah's workplace, a Texaco station, and at a mosque. But initially he said he did not know anyone named "Khalid" and did not recognize photos of Almihdhar, who had accompanied Alhazmi on about three occasions.

Awadallah also claimed he did not write the names "Nawaf" and "Khalid" in a writing exercise at Grossmont Community College, where he is taking classes, including one in English as a second language. On September 15, after the suspected hijackers' names were publicized, a teacher turned in the exam booklet to authorities.

In his second grand jury appearance on October 15, after being shown the original exam booklet instead of a faxed photocopy, Awadallah admitted writing the names. He also identified Almihdhar as a man who had often accompanied Alhazmi and acknowledged knowing him.

Defense attorney Jesse Berman told U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin he would argue in a pretrial motion that Awadallah's recantation of the false testimony before the same grand jury, allowed under certain circumstances, should bar the prosecution.

Berman told the court that Awadallah was at a disadvantage before the grand jury. He appeared in prison garb handcuffed to the witness chair and was questioned by a Justice Department attorney wearing an American flag lapel pin, Berman said. The attorney suggested Awadallah's language deficiency may have caused wrong answers.

"He speaks and understands English but is not great at it," Berman said. Awadallah appeared Monday with the aid of an Arabic interpreter.

The indictment, filed last week, says FBI agents found computer-generated photographs of accused terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in Awadallah's apartment and Islamic militant videotapes in his car. The tapes were titled "Martyrs of Bosnia," "Bosnia 1993," and "The Koran vs. the Bible, Which is God's Word?"

The indictment also says investigators found a piece of paper with Awadallah's first name and phone number in the car abandoned by Alhazmi at Dulles airport on September 11.

Awadallah had consented to an FBI search of his apartment and car, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Robin Baker.

Awadallah is being held at Manhattan's federal jail, the Manhattan Correctional Center, locked up 24 hours a day in his own cell in the jail's highest security wing. His father, a naturalized U.S. citizen in San Diego, has not yet been able to arrange a jail visit.

Awadallah's prosecution is one of the few publicly revealed charges stemming from the secretive September 11 investigation brought by federal prosecutors in New York.