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Excerpts from: Jurors Chosen in Cigarette Case

                   By TIM WHITMIRE, Associated Press [05/21/02]Newsday.com - Jurors Chosen in Cigarette Case
 
                   CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- Two men accused of helping
                   run a cigarette-smuggling operation to benefit Lebanese
                   guerrillas were brought by armored truck to a
                   courthouse, where jurors were chosen amid tight
                   security.

                  The government charges the brothers with taking part in a conspiracy that bought
                   cheap cigarettes in North Carolina and resold them in Michigan without paying
                   that state's higher cigarette taxes.

                   Mohamad Hammoud, 28, also is charged under a 1996 anti-terrorism law with
                   providing material support to a terrorist group, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

                   He faces up to 10 years in prison on that charge. If convicted and sentenced at
                   maximum levels on other charges -- money laundering, cigarette smuggling,
                   immigration fraud and racketeering, among others -- he could spend the rest of
                   his life in prison.

                   Chawki Hammoud, 37, faces lesser charges of cigarette smuggling, money
                   laundering and racketeering.