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In June 2007, he traveled to Israel but was denied entry. He wanted to visit the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount and Al-Aqsa Mosque. It's Islam's third holiest site after Mecca's Sacred Mosque and the Mosque of the Prophet in Madina.
Charges allege his Jordanian and Israeli travel related to planned jihad. According to his mother Laila:
Soon after returning home, "the FBI was knocking on my door and asking me questions. When Ziyad and his friend came back, they were constantly harassed and watched by the FBI."Before visiting Jordan, he and a travel companion "knew a specific person of interest to the FBI for a short while."
When they returned, they "had no contact with this person." Nonetheless, "the FBI continued to harass my son and his friend and they tried to pressure them to say something, even though Ziyad and his friend had nothing to say."
"Both boys insisted that they didn't know anything personal about the person the FBI was conducting an investigation on and couldn't understand what the FBI was looking for!"
"Two years later, a simple fight broke between the boys and one of the friends of Ziyad. The FBI made it sound so horrendous and tried to charge Ziyad and his friend with many things and threw them in jail."
"The FBI came once more to my door and asked me more questions, and then one of them told me that he wants the boys in jail because he wants them to feel more pressured to tell them something about the individual the FBI have been inquiring about earlier."
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