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U.S. District Judge Donald E. Walter ruled last week that prosecutors can use footage from videos found on Aldawsari's computer, including one in which Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's current leader, praises as martyrs two unspecified individuals killed by "American Crusaders." Two instructional videos that he also allowed show how to prepare the explosive picric acid and how to use a cellphone as a remote detonator. TNP, the chemical explosive Aldawsari was suspected of trying to make, has about the same destructive power as TNT. FBI bomb experts said the amounts in the Aldawsari case would have yielded almost 15 pounds of explosive
-- about the same amount used per bomb in the London subway attacks that killed scores of people in July 2005. Aldawsari came to the U.S. in October 2008 from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to study chemical engineering at Texas Tech. He transferred in early 2011 to nearby South Plains College, where he was studying business. A Saudi industrial company, which was not identified in court documents, was paying his tuition and living expenses. During jury selection Thursday, Aldawsari's attorney, Dan Cogdell, asked potential panelists if they would have any issue with Aldawsari's Muslim faith or Saudi citizenship. Cogdell also asked if they would "think kind of hard about" sitting next to a Saudi citizen on an airplane. Aldawsari sat next to his attorneys wearing a dark blue suit jacket and silver tie, and sporting hair that was shorter than during his previous court appearances.
[Associated
Press;
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