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Egyptian college student freed; charges dropped

Abdallah Higazy: "I don't blame the FBI."

By Phil Hirschkorn
CNN New York Bureau

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The government has decided to drop its case against an Egyptian college student charged with lying to FBI agents investigating the September 11 attacks.

The defendant, Abdallah Higazy, 30, was released from jail Wednesday night after one month behind bars.

In a letter earlier in the day to U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas, federal prosecutors requested that the case against Higazy be dismissed because "subsequent developments have called into question the charge."

Higazy was charged just last Friday with one count of lying to agents about an aviation radio found in his room on the 51st floor of the Millenium Hotel, across the street from the World Trade Center site.

Higazy had checked in to the hotel August 27 at the direction of the U.S.-funded scholarship program that brought him to the country. He was still there when the planes crashed into the Twin Towers on September 11.

Radio belonged to U.S. pilot

The aviation radio found in the hotel is a hand-held "transceiver" that enables pilots to have air-to-air or air-to-ground communications.

The government, which alleged at first that the aviation radio was found in Higazy's room safe, now says it was found elsewhere in his room, according to Higazy's defense attorney, Robert Dunn.

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Furthermore, Dunn said, another individual has claimed ownership of the radio, and he has no connection to Higazy. The owner is an American citizen and a private pilot who was also staying at the hotel September 11, Dunn said.

"The owner of the aviation radio had no interaction with Mr. Higazy. It is still unclear, therefore, how the radio was transferred from the room on the 50th floor to Mr. Higazy's room on the 51st floor," the government's letter said.

Higazy was among hundreds of people who evacuated the hotel September 11. His belongings, including his passport and his copy of the Koran, were found in October when hotel staff returned to take inventory of guest belongings.

"Employees of the hotel have indicated that although the hotel has been closed since September 11, a number of people entered the room in which Mr. Higazy had been staying between September 11 and the day on which the radio was found," the letter said.

The letter to Judge Maas, who presided over Higazy's initial court appearance and denied Higazy's bail application, was signed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Himmelfarb on behalf of U.S. Attorney James Comey, who took over the top prosecutor's job in the Southern District of New York earlier this month.

Freedom and $3

Higazy was released from the Metropolitan Correctional Center around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday. The jail gave him $3 for subway fare and he went to stay at a friend's residence in the New York City area, Dunn said.

"His mood was ecstatic. He gave all praises to Allah and then to me," Dunn said.

Higazy's attorney Robert Dunn

"His first concern was whether he could stay in the country and complete his scholarship," Dunn said. Higazy was enrolled in a two-year computer engineering graduate program at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn and began classes on September 4.

His December 17 arrest occurred in the middle of last semester's final exams and he did not receive credit for the coursework, according to school spokesman John Kelly.

After his arrival on a student visa, Higazy was allotted a month's hotel stay to find housing, which he did, in Staten Island. He returned to the hotel in December to retrieve books, clothing and personal items.

FBI agents questioned him about the radio when he did and arrested him the same day. In three FBI interviews, Higazy, who has served in the Egyptian military and said he was familiar with pilot radios, "denied, seemingly inexplicably, that he ever possessed the radio," the prosecutors' letter said.

"The government is continuing to investigate the circumstances that led to the radio's transfer from the room on the 50th floor to Mr. Higazy's room," the letter said.