Lebanese man pleads innocent to charges

PORTLAND (AP) - The lawyer for a Lebanese man accused of federal weapons violations acknowledged Thursday that his client had received Palestinian weapons training but denied it was terrorist-based.

Ali Khaled Steityie was arraigned on weapons charges before U.S. District Judge John Jelderks and pleaded innocent. A preliminary trial date was set for Dec. 18, but Jelderks indicated that would be delayed by several weeks.

Portland Police said Steityie admitted to training with guerrilla groups in Lebanon.

Attorney Dennis Balske said it was true that Steityie had received weapons training as a boy in a Palestinian refugee camp "but it wasn't terrorist by any stretch of the imagination."

"There were Palestinians who trained boys eight, nine, 10 years old like you train Boy Scouts to tie knots," he said after the brief arraignment.

The bearded and balding Steityie appeared in court Thursday dressed in blue prison pants and shirt. He did not speak.

Portland Police Chief Mark Kroeker, who announced Steityie's arrest this week, said authorities who searched the suspect's Beaverton apartment also found a plaque with "Hamas," the name of a Palestinian terrorist group that carries out suicide bombings in Israel, written on it.

Balske contended "Hamas" is "Samah," a popular Arabic girl's name, spelled backward. He said Steityie and his wife Rebecca, who have three boys, hoped for a girl.

"If you turn it around and want it to say Hamas, it will say Hamas," he said. "Now, after Sept. 11, it is Hamas."

He said Steityie, a hardware technician at Intel who was laid off last year, has been in the country since the early 1980s and in Oregon at least since 1988.

Authorities contend he acquired his American citizenship fraudulently.

His previous felony violations include larceny, bail-jumping, illegal weapons possession and obstruction of correspondence.

Authorities exercising a search warrant at his apartment Oct. 24 found he was carrying a loaded Soviet-made pistol and had a 7.62mm Romanian assault rifle and about 1,000 rounds of .22-caliber ammunition in one of his vehicles.

Steityie is not allowed to own firearms because of his prior convictions.

He also is charged with giving false information while filling out a federal firearms purchase application.

Balske declined to say what Steityie needed the weapons for, citing lawyer-client confidentiality.

He contended the case has been overblown and that Steityie's family is facing eviction because of it.

Kroeker used the announcement Tuesday of Steityie's arrest to stress that Portland police were cooperating with a federal anti-terrorist task force after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Balske said Portland police were feeling pressured after their refusal to question 23 persons of interest to the federal government as part of a terrorism probe.