Waad Ramadan Alwan Joins Fellow Iraqi Mohanad Shareef Hammadi In Waiving Detention Hearing In Bowling Green, Kentucky.

2nd Iraqi charged in terror case waives hearing
By BRETT BARROUQUERE and DYLAN LOVAN

BOWLING GREEN, Ky. (AP) -- An Iraqi refugee charged with trying to send weapons from the U.S. to al-Qaida operatives in Iraq waived his right to argue for release pending trial Wednesday, just minutes before the proceedings were set to begin.

Scott Wendelsdorf, the public defender for 30-year-old Waad Ramadan Alwan, opted not to pursue a bond hearing in Bowling Green, but did not give a reason why. Wendelsdorf left the federal courthouse without commenting. A waiver filed in federal court and signed by Alwan and Wendelsdorf said only that Alwan reserved the right to ask for a bond hearing in the future.

Alwan is charged in a 23-count indictment with conspiracy to kill a United States national, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to provide material support to terrorists.

Charged with Alwan is 23-year-old Mohanad Shareef Hammadi. Hammadi waived his detention hearing on Tuesday.

Hammadi is charged with attempting to provide material support to terrorists and knowingly transferring, possessing or exporting a device designed or intended to launch or guide a rocket or missile.

Authorities say the weapons and money from Alwan and Hammadi didn't make it to Iraq because of a tightly controlled undercover investigation.

U.S. Department of Justice attorney Larry Schneider, who is among three people prosecuting the case, declined comment after the hearing.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the U.S. Justice Department, said he's unsure if other Iraqi refugees have been charged with terrorism-related acts in the United States because the agency doesn't track cases by nationality. But, Boyd noted, other foreign nationals have been charged in the United States with plotting or committing terrorist acts overseas.

Wesam al-Delaema, a native of Iraq and Dutch citizen pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington, D.C. to conspiring with others to murder Americans overseas, including by planting roadside bombs targeting U.S. soldiers in Fallujah, Iraq, and by demonstrating on video how these explosives would be detonated to destroy American vehicles and their occupants. He also pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his beating of a U.S. prison guard. Under the terms of the plea agreement, al-Delaema is serving a 25 year sentence in the Netherlands.

Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistan citizen, was convicted in federal court in Manhattan in 2010 for firing on U.S. military officers and agents who tried to question her while she was in custody in Afghanistan two years earlier. Siddiqui received 86 years in prison.

Hakimullah Mehsud, the alleged leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has been charged in Washington, D.C. for his alleged role in the killing of U.S. nationals in Afghanistan in a bomb attack in 2009.

"There have been unfortunately a number of people charged here," Boyd said. "There are people in this country who have been charged with plotting terrorist acts overseas."

Court documents said the investigation of Alwan began in September 2009, five months after arrived in the U.S. Late in 2010, authorities started using an informant to record conversations with him.

Alwan told the informant he was involved in insurgent attacks in Iraq from 2003 until 2006, according to a criminal complaint filed in court.

In January, investigators identified fingerprints belonging to Alwan on a component of an unexploded IED that was recovered by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2005, the FBI said.

The informant told Alwan he worked for groups that received money from Osama bin Laden and was planning to send money and weapons to Iraq in secret compartments on cars.

Investigators said Alwan recruited Hammadi in January to help him, describing the younger Iraqi to the informant as a relative whose work as an insurgent was well-known. Later that month, Alwan and Hammadi allegedly delivered money to a tractor-trailer, believing the money would ultimately be shipped to al-Qaida in Iraq. They later helped delivered weapons that included two Stinger missiles, authorities said.

Attorneys for both Alwan and Hammadi have filed motions asking for various types of evidence, including any information about other crimes that may be introduced and recordings that prosecutors may seek to use at trial.

Federal officials have declined to explain how the two men were able to gain refugee status. A Department of Homeland Security official told The Associated Press said Alwan and Hammadi slipped through gaps in the immigration vetting system that have since been filled. The official said the agency now checks people repeatedly as new information becomes available.