Lawyer: Smoke grenade passenger to plead not guilty

Bart Jansen | USATODAY

An airline passenger charged in Los Angeles with having a smoke grenade in his checked baggage will plead not guilty Friday and fight for his release after a week of detention, his lawyer's spokesman said Thursday.

Yongda Huang Harris, 28, attracted the suspicion of Customs and Border Protection officers after arriving Oct. 5 on a flight from Japan and South Korea wearing a bulletproof vest and flame-retardant pants. But the unusual garb was part of a "fashion statement," according to Chris Williams, a spokesman for Harris' lawyer, Steven Seiden.

Harris was charged with transporting hazardous materials because a smoke grenade investigators say they found in his checked luggage is classified by the Transportation Department as an explosive. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

"He's not being held as a terrorist," Williams said. "We're going to plead not guilty. We're going to fight this."

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office in Los Angeles declined comment on the case because it is pending.

The Department of Homeland Security has said Harris had no criminal record and no derogatory national-security record.

The case drew international attention because U.S. Customs investigators said they found knives, leather-coated billy clubs, a hatchet, body bags, a biohazard suit, handcuffs and leg irons in Harris' checked luggage. The Transportation Security Administration allows those items in checked bags because passengers can't get access to them in the cabin.

Harris had just a laptop with him as a carry-on bag, Williams said.

The TSA is meeting with counterparts in Korea, the flight's last point of departure to the United States, to determine how the smoke grenade got through screening as Harris traveled aboard Asiana Airlines from Osaka, Japan, through Seoul, South Korea, to Los Angeles on his way to Boston.

Harris, a naturalized citizen who grew up in Boston, has been teaching English in Japan and was returning home for a funeral, according to spokesman Williams. Harris' lawyer, Seiden, instructed him not to speak with investigators about his belongings under his constitutional right against self-incrimination, Williams said.

Williams said he couldn't talk about the weapons found in the checked baggage because lawyers were still investigating. But he questioned some of the descriptions of the items, such as "body bags" for what Williams says are large duffel bags.

Harris was wearing a knock-off bulletproof vest that he bought off the Internet, rather than at an armory store, because he considered it fashionable, Williams said. Beneath his trench coat, Harris wore knee pads and leg coverings that Williams compared to what a skier wears below the knees to keep his pants dry.

"That was stuff he was wearing as a fashion statement," Williams said. "This is just a normal kid. It's this newfangled generation we're dealing with and their different fashion habits."