Friends of Fountain Place bomb plot suspect confounded by jihadist label

Source: Dallas news

07:13 AM CDT on Tuesday, September 29, 2009

By MARJORIE KORN and JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News

More details emerged Monday about the Jordanian teenager accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper that would appear to contradict the FBI's assertion that Hosam "Sam" Maher Husein Smadi was an Islamic fundamentalist bent on bloodshed.

A California woman described the 19-year-old Smadi as an easygoing youngster who came to this country three years ago not to destroy it, but to get over the painful loss of his mother to cancer. The woman, Temina Elrabodi, and her husband, Hana, are from Jordan and agreed to let Smadi live with them at their San Jose home when he entered the United States.

Temina Elrabodi described Smadi as a "very sad kid" and said he lived with them for about three weeks until her husband helped him find a job at a restaurant and he began attending high school.

"In my country, Jordan, everybody knows each other," she said. "Everybody wanted to help him, to take him away from the situation."

Meanwhile, Ellis County Courthouse records confirmed Monday what Smadi's father told reporters last week – that his son had gotten married since coming to the United States. According to the records, Smadi wedded Rosalinda Duron on July 16, 2008.

Ellis County Justice of the Peace Linda Sibley said that she didn't specifically recall Smadi's brief $60 service – she said she does hundreds a year – but as a rule, hers have Christian elements in them and she said that Bible passages were probably read during the ceremony.

"I'm a United Methodist lay leader," Sibley said. "I'm not comfortable with just civil, per se. My weddings have a prayer and Jesus mentioned in it. If someone says they don't want God mentioned at all, our clerk says, 'Our judge isn't the person for that, she's pretty devout' and they give them the numbers for other JPs."

Reached at her Waxahachie home Monday, Duron, 20, declined to comment. She told The New York Times over the weekend that she and Smadi separated after three months but remained friends. It is unclear if the couple have divorced.

Her grandfather, Genaro Duron, told WFAA-TV (Channel 8), however, that Smadi offered Duron $5,000 to marry him. She refused, the grandfather said, and made a counteroffer of $10,000. It is unclear if any money ever changed hands.

Duron's MySpace page shows her and someone who appears to be Smadi mugging for the camera, wearing shirts that say Texas Best Smokehouse in Italy, the Ellis County eatery and gas station where he worked for a time.

Smadi was arrested Thursday and accused in Dallas federal court of attempting to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. The FBI says it encountered Smadi more than six months ago talking about violent jihad, or holy war, on an extremist Web site. Three undercover agents began corresponding with him and eventually agreed to supply him with a fake bomb inside a late-model Ford Explorer. Agents say they tried to dissuade him from violence, but he was adamant, authorities said.

Smadi was arrested after he parked the SUV with the inert explosives under the 60-story Fountain Place office building, walked to meet up with one of the undercover agents and called a cellphone number that he thought would trigger the blast.

Smadi was being held at the Seagoville federal prison Monday. He has not responded to interview requests, and his court-appointed attorney also did not return a phone message.

On what appears to be Smadi's MySpace page, his last log-in was the Thursday of his arrest. His status: sick & high. There are various marijuana-smoking references on his page, which also features songs by the rapper Lil Wayne and an online "Mobsters" game.

Friends in Italy, where Smadi lived since at least spring 2008, say that he was nice and they never heard him espouse any anti-American sentiment or talk of violence.

Josh Childress lived with Smadi for about three months in Italy last year. Childress said he remembered Smadi as a generous, thoughtful friend who helped him out when he needed a place to stay.

While living with him, there was another side to Smadi that few saw, Childress said. He said at one point Smadi was down on himself, depressed that he was away from his family and his homeland in Jordan.

On Monday, Childress spoke of Smadi almost as if he had an alter ego.

"I knew Sam," said Childress. "I didn't know Hosam."

The FBI and U.S. attorney's office have said that Smadi is in the U.S. illegally, but they did not release any more details. Immigration officials have said little about Smadi's case, other than that he has a detainer on him, presumably for immigration violations. His 18-year-old brother, Husein, was also arrested last week in California by immigration agents, but authorities have not linked him to terrorist activities his brother is accused of.

The boys' father in Jordan told reporters last week that his two sons traveled to the U.S. on student visas and lived in California. He said that Hosam Smadi had no animosity against America and was innocent of the charges against him.

Temina Elrabodi said she was surprised to learn of Smadi's arrest but said she didn't keep up with him after he moved out of her home.

"After that I don't know where he go, which place he live, nothing," Elrabodi said.

"It's a very sad situation."

Staff writer Jon Nielsen contributed to this story.