BDNEWS, Dhaka
Two 16-year-old girls from New York City, including one Bangladeshi, were arrested last month and charged with immigration violations after the FBI asserted that they intended to become suicide bombers.
Their families however said the accusation was false and the government had probably misinterpreted a school essay written by the Bangladeshi girl.
But one federal official, not connected to the FBI, expressed scepticism that the teenagers represented a real risk of a suicide bombing.
"There are doubts about these claims, and no evidence has been found that such a plot was in the works," the unnamed government official in Washington was quoted by the NYT. A law-enforcement official in New York voiced the same doubts.
Police detectives, and then federal immigration agents, searched belongings of the Bangladeshi girl and confiscated her computer and the essays that she had written as part of a home schooling programme. One essay concerned suicide. The family maintained that the essay asserted that suicide is against Islamic law, but it led investigators to question her about her political beliefs.
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