US jailed Saudi again after jury's acquittal
Judge freed him in sparkler case
By Shelley Murphy, Globe Staff, 3/2/2004
Eight hours after a Saudi man was acquitted by a federal jury of all charges for carrying three small sparklers on a flight from Germany to Boston and was told he was free to leave, five federal officers stormed his South End apartment just after midnight Saturday and arrested him for not having a valid visa. He was jailed until he flew home late that afternoon.
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"When they found me not guilty that meant I am a human being. . . . Why did they have to treat me like that?" said Essam Mohammed Almohandis, who had praised the US justice system after his acquittal and hugged the prosecutor.
In a telephone interview yesterday from Riyadh, Almohandis said the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection officers wouldn't let him call anyone to help his wife, Trifaha, who doesn't speak English and had arrived here last week to testify at his trial in US District Court in Boston. When he was taken to jail, she ran outside the West Newton Street apartment at 12:30 a.m. and got a stranger to call his lawyer for help on his cellphone, Almohandis said.
"They treat me very badly," said Almohandis, a 33-year-old biomedical engineer and father of two. "I was worried about my wife. What if she didn't find that good man? What if she found a not good man?"
But Janet Rapaport, a spokeswoman for Customs, insisted that Almohandis had an opportunity to speak with his wife and explain what was happening before he was taken to jail. "He was not treated poorly," she said. "He was properly treated."
According to Rapaport, Almohandis had already left the courthouse by the time Customs officers had completed his processing and determined that he needed to be taken into custody and sent home immediately. By, then, she said, "it took time to find out where he was."
After Almohandis's arrest in January, his visa to travel to the United States on business was revoked. Even though he was aquitted, Rapaport said that under immigration rules the agency had to determine whether he should be allowed to remain here briefly or face "expedited removal."
Following the verdict, US District Judge Patti B. Saris had told Almohandis that he was no longer under court order to remain under house arrest. The electronic bracelet he had worn while out on bail was removed from his ankle.
Almohandis, who works at a hospital in Riyadh, was arrested on Jan. 3 when he arrived in Boston for a training seminar and inspectors at Logan International Airport found the sparklers in a side pocket of his backpack. He was charged with carrying an incendiary device on an aircraft and lying to inspectors about it.
He remained jailed for three weeks and then was released on bail, under the condition that he remain under so-called house arrest at an apartment in Boston, with an electronic bracelet strapped to his ankle.
After a weeklong trial and two days of deliberations, a federal jury announced just after 4 p.m. on Friday that it had found Almohandis not guilty of the charges. Jurors said they believed Almohandis, who had testified that he didn't know how the sparklers got into his backpack and initially thought they were artists' crayons when an inspector found them.
Almohandis's wife testified that she had packed her husband's bag and didn't put the sparklers inside. She told jurors she didn't know how they got there, but said that she had come home from the hospital with their new baby the day before her husband left on his trip and that visitors, including children, had stopped by.
Attorney Miriam Conrad, a federal defender who represents Almohandis, said that she told him to go out and have a nice dinner with his wife after his acquittal and that she would arrange for him to fly home yesterday.
Almohandis said he went to the Barking Crab on Northern Avenue with his wife and father-in-law for dinner and then spent several hours at the Boston hotel where his father-in-law was staying. He and his wife returned to his apartment just after midnight and were greeted within minutes by the agents, he said.
"I certainly hope that it wasn't vindictive on the part of Customs," said Conrad, adding she couldn't understand why Customs hadn't arrested Almohandis at the courthouse if they thought he had to be taken into custody immediately.
A spokesman for the US attorney's office declined to comment.
But Almohandis said he got some help during his ordeal from the prosecutor who handled his case. Assistant US Attorney Gregory Moffatt, who had prosecuted Almohandis, went to Almohandis's apartment at 2:30 a.m. Saturday to collect his wallet and credit cards and delivered them to him in jail. "He came to the jail and apologized," Almohandis said. "He promised me the next night I would be in Saudi Arabia."
© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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