By KERA News & Wire Services
Dallas, TX – Lawyers for a Jordanian man accused of trying to blow up a Dallas skyscraper have asked a judge to suppress statements their client made to FBI agents after his September arrest.
In a federal court motion filed last week in Dallas, Hosam Smadi's lawyers say FBI agents didn't advise him of his right to remain silent until they had questioned him for seven minutes. The motion says Smadi tried to stop speaking with the agents, but that their questions continued for up to five hours.
An FBI spokesman in Dallas declined to comment Wednesday.
Authorities accuse Smadi of leaving what he thought was a truck bomb in a garage beneath the 60-story Fountain Place building in downtown Dallas in September. The device was a decoy provided by FBI agents posing as al-Qaida operatives.
Report: Contaminants not greater for Texas town
A state report says residents of a small North Texas town don't have higher levels of cancer-causing contaminants in their blood than the rest of the nation.
The state health report released Wednesday is based on results of samples taken in January from more than two dozen residents of Dish.
The health department got involved after Texas environmental regulators reported extremely high levels of cancer-causing benzene at two natural gas wells and elevated levels at 19 more sites.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had done air testing over one of the nation's biggest natural gas fields, the 5,000-square-mile Barnett Shale.
Dish Mayor Calvin Tillman also had filed complaints with the state over benzene detected near his town, which is 30 miles north of Fort Worth.
Grandmother of dead Texas toddler testifies
The grandmother of a toddler who died in December 2008 testified she had been concerned about her daughter's well-being and mental status.
The defense began Wednesday in the Conroe capital murder trial of Blaine Milam.
Milam is accused of fatally beating his girlfriend's 13-month-old daughter, Amora Bain Carson, in an alleged exorcism. The mother, Jesseca Carson, faces trial later.
Heather Carson says her daughter and her granddaughter at one time lived with her in Longview. She says her daughter met Milam in January 2008.
The Tyler Morning Telegraph reports the defense displayed photos of Amora's baby book, indicating Jesseca Carson marked out the name of the biological father and inserted Milam's name.
The trial was moved from Rusk County due to extensive pretrial publicity.