Hussein Smadi returns to Jordan from US

(MENAFN - Jordan Times) Jordanian citizen Hussein Maher Smadi returned home on Saturday after he was released by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported yesterday.

Hussein was arrested on September 24 along with his brother Hosam, who was indicted in October on charges of plotting to destroy a building in Dallas, Texas, with what he thought was a car bomb.

Authorities say Hosam, who is set to stand trial in June, parked a truck he thought contained a bomb in the garage beneath the 60-storey Fountain Place office building in downtown Dallas. Later, authorities say, he dialed a cell phone he thought would ignite a blast.

The device was actually a decoy provided by FBI employees posing as Al Qaeda operatives. The FBI says it had been keeping tabs on Hosam since an undercover language analyst discovered him in an online extremist group.

Hosam's family has maintained his innocence, and Maher Hussein Smadi, the father of the two young men, accused the FBI of "entrapping" his son in a previous interview with The Jordan Times.

Hussein's arrest was not related to the case against his brother, Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said shortly after the two were arrested.

After his return, Hussein lauded the government's efforts in following up on his case through the official correspondence carried out between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the US justice department that led to his release, Petra said.

His detention, which lasted for two-and-a-half months, was based on the grounds that he was an illegal resident in the US, Hussein said, explaining that he had filed an application to rectify his status while in the US since he was attending high school but that US government officials had asked him to postpone that until he had completed school.

Interrogations lasted for two weeks, after which he was detained without trial and released through the FBI office, he said.

The father expressed gratitude to the Jordanian government for its full cooperation with the US authorities in following up on his son's case. He also commended the role of the Jordanian media in covering the case.