Saudi in US ‘terror plot’ denied retrial

LUBBOCK, Texas — A federal judge has rejected an appeal to grant a new trial to a young Saudi man accused of planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States.

Khalid Ali Aldawsari, a 22-year-old former Texas Tech University student, asked for a new trial in July, a month after his conviction in Lubbock of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Aldawsari accused prosecutors of misrepresenting his intentions for coming to America. Prosecutor Denise Williams accused Aldawsari in June of “marching down that road” to an attack since he was 11.

US District Judge Donald Walter cited Aldawsari’s journals as evidence to dismiss his claim. Walter also denied Aldawsari’s other claims about supposed prosecution misstatements.

Aldawsari, who was legally in the US on a student visa, was arrested in February 2011 after federal agents secretly searched his apartment near Texas Tech University in Lubbock and found bomb-making chemicals, wiring, a hazmat suit and clocks.

Authorities also discovered Aldawsari’s journal, handwritten in Arabic, in which he wrote he’d been planning a terror attack in the US for years and that it was “time for jihad,” court documents show. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced on Oct. 9. – AP