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Student Sentenced to 15 Years for YouTube Terror Video

By Ryan Singel, Kevin Poulsen, Sarah Lai Stirland, Kim Zetter, and David Kravets

An Egyptian engineering student was sentenced in the United States on Thursday to 15 years imprisonment after pleading guilty to uploading a 12-minute video to YouTube that demonstrated how to convert a remote-control toy car into a bomb detonator.

In June, Ahmed Abdellatif Sherif Mohamed, 27, pleaded guiltyin a Florida federal court to one count of providing material support to terrorists. He was a student at the University of South Florida. South Carolina authorities said they found various bomb-making materials in the vehicle he was driving when he was pulled over last year.

The video, with his voice in Arabic, was discovered during a search of his laptop computer, the authorities said. In the video, which the authorities said was viewed by the public hundreds of times, shows how to make a remote-control toy car from Walmart into a bomb detonator.

In court documents, (.pdf) he said "he intended the technology demonstrated in his audio-video recording to be used against those who fight for the United States." He said he considered them and their allies fighting in Arab countries to be "invaders." The United States, he said, was a "vile nation."

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Full post as published by Threat Level on December 18, 2008 (boomark / email).