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Bader Alzahrani, a 22-year-old divorced sophomore who attends an undisclosed college, is accused of first breaking into a vacant home across the street from a Livingston Board of Education parking lot on Hill Side Avenue where the bus was parked.
The district reported the bus stolen on Jan. 17, two days after the residential break-in, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey Philip R. Sellinger said.
Police found a backpack with a Saudi Arabian passport bearing Alzahrani's name, along with other items that apparently belonged to him, in the home, Sellinger said on Monday, Jan. 30.
These included journals of messages in both English and Arabic, some of them anti-Semitic, the FBI charged in a complaint on file in U.S. District Court in Newark.
Phrases in the journals allegedly include: "God I am ready for your orders. I want to live the rest of my life to serve you and the religion."
Another said: "Blood, blood, destruction, destruction. Allah."
And: "Jews control everything."
Alzahrani was carrying keys to the bus when he was seized two days later and charged with transporting a stolen school bus across state lines, Sellinger said.
He remained held in a local New Jersey jail until ICE agents took custody of him, records show.
Sellinger credited special agents of the FBI and task force officers of the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Newark with the investigation leading to the charges.
He also thanked the FBI Field Office in Washington, D.C.; the Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Security Investigations; the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office; the Monroe County, PA District Attorney's Office; and Livingston and New Jersey State Police.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Levin of Sellinger's National Security Unit in Newark is handling the case.
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