A Jordanian man who aroused suspicion by visiting extremist Web sites and looking up bomb-making information in a public library was sentenced to a year in prison for lying to FBI investigators, federal authorities said. Mohammad Radwan Obeid, 34, will get credit for time served for eight months he has spent in federal custody and will be deported in November, according to sentencing guidelines issued by US District Court Judge Thomas Rose on Friday. The case began in March 2005 when a librarian in Troy, Ohio, became concerned about Obeid's visits to jihadist Web sites and e-mails about nuclear bombs and other weapons, said James Turgal, supervisory FBI special agent for the Cincinnati-based joint terrorism task force. The librarian called the FBI, and a Norfolk, Virginia, police officer, David Vazquez, also reported to the FBI seeing threatening and inflammatory online postings and e-mails from Obeid. Vazquez testified that Obeid told him in an e-mail he wanted to start an operation that would be bigger than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Obeid sent numerous e-mails to different individuals, but denied sending them when questioned by the FBI, Turgal said. The FBI searched the library's computer and Obeid's personal computer before he was charged, he said. Obeid's attorneys challenged authorities' interpretations of his e-mails and contended he was conducting research for a book on terrorism and world religions. Immigration officials said they believe Obeid entered the United States through marriage fraud. He married an American woman in Jordan and came to the United States in 2001, according to court papers. The marriage was annulled five months later.