“Jordanian Student Testifies in Court”

Associated Press correspondent Larry Neumeister reports on Osama Awadallah’s courtroom testimony. Excerpt:

NEW YORK (AP) – A Jordanian student testified Monday that FBI agents accused him of being one of the Sept. 11 terrorists after saying he failed a lie detector test.

Osama Awadallah, 21, said agents told him he would be freed but after he’d completed a voluntary polygraph test Sept. 21, they said it proved he’d lied and had advance knowledge of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center .

“`You did it. You were one of the terrorists,”‘ Awadallah said he was told by one agent. “`You knew they were going to do it.”‘

The student at Grossmont College, in El Cajon, Calif., who is free on $500,000 bail, said he denied being a terrorist and responded: “I tell the truth all the time.”

On Saturday, FBI polygrapher J. Antonio Falcon testified that the results of Awadallah’s polygraph examination “appeared to be consistent with deception.”

When FBI polygrapher J. Antonio Falcon testified that Awadallah’s polygraph examination “appeared to be consistent with deception,” he made a claim that has no scientific basis. Because polygraphy lacks both standardization and control, it can have no validity or diagnostic value.

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