"There are non-Muslims who still think I had something to do with the attacks and Muslims who think I got my freedom because I'm working for the government. I can't control what people think. All I can do is move on."
Moving on means he wants to become a U.S. citizen, marry and "live like any American." Finding a woman to marry is a milepost in an American journey that for a while was like "a bad movie that turned real," he said.
He reached an important goal last year when he graduated from San Diego State with a business degree. His long-term goal is to become a doctor.
"I want to prove that I can be a good American citizen, but I can't get a job in my field because with a name like Osama, [employers] research me," he said. "They Google my name and get thousands of hits" about his trials and association with Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, who were among the hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
He was a casual acquaintance of the two terrorists in 2000. He met them at the mosque in La Mesa and worked for about a month with Alhazmi at a service station. The FBI found his old telephone number in Alhazmi's car, which was parked at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C., and detained him as a material witness on Sept. 21, 2001.
Authorities took him to New York City to testify before a federal grand jury. He was indicted on two counts of perjury because under questioning he said he could not remember Almihdhar's first name, though there was proof he knew it.
Awadallah had written a report about his summer for Pollack's class on English as a second language, and she gave the essay to the FBI. "One of the quietest people I have ever met is Nawaf and Khalid," he had written. He blames the contradiction in his testimony on his poor English and fear and confusion after being kept awake all night by guards.
Defense attorney Randall B. Hamud said Awadallah appeared at his bail hearing before then-federal Judge Michael Mukasey, now President Bush's nominee for attorney general, after being detained as a material witness. Bail was denied, and Hamud said he complained to Mukasey that jailers had beaten Awadallah.
"He looked at Osama and said, 'Your client looks fine to me. You can file a lawsuit if you want to,' " according to Hamud.
