3 charged with planning attacks in Iraq
(AP)
Updated: 2006-02-22 08:50

The three pleaded not guilty in federal courts in Cleveland and Toledo. The most serious charges could bring life in prison.

Two of the men discussed plans to practice setting off explosives on the Fourth of July in 2005 so that the bombs would not be noticed, the indictment alleges. It was not clear whether the men went through with those plans.

The indictment says the group also traveled together to a shooting range to practice and studied how to make explosives. It alleges that at least one of the men researched and tried to obtain government grants and private funding for the training.

Mohammad Zaki Amawi, 26, is accused of threatening in conversations to kill or injure Bush. He also is charged with distributing information about making and using bombs.

The others are Marwan Othman El-Hindi, 42, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan; and Wassim I. Mazloum, 24, who came to the United States from Lebanon in 2000.

El-Hindi's attorney, Steve Hartman, said that the government was overzealous in bringing the charges. "It doesn't help that he's Jordanian," Hartman said.

El-Hindi is accused of trying to get the U.S. citizen with a military background to travel with him in 2004 to the Middle East as part of a plot to establish a terrorism training center. The indictment identifies the military person only as "the trainer."

Mazloum, who said he is an engineering major at the University of Toledo, operated a car business in Toledo with his brother. The indictment accuses him of offering to use his dealership as a cover for traveling to and from Iraq so that he could learn how to build small explosives using household materials.

All three men are charged with conspiracy to kill, kidnap, maim, or injure people or damage property in a foreign country. They were also charged with conspiracy to kill Americans and harboring or concealing terrorists.

Amawi was assigned a public defender. Mazloum's attorney, Chuck Sallah, said he knew very little about his client or the charges.

Earlier this week, the U.S. government ordered a freeze on the asssets of KindHearts, a Toledo-based group suspected of funneling money to the militant organization Hamas. Law enforcement officials, speaking of condition of anonymity, said the arrests of the three men spurred the decision to freeze KindHearts' assets.

"Some aspects of them do overlap," an official said.

KindHearts has denied any terrorist connections and has said it is a humanitarian organization.