http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060619/ap_on_re_mi_ea/myspace_mideast
JERICHO, West Bank - The Palestinian man who had an Internet romance with a 16-year-old Michigan girl is a music-loving computer buff who says he loves the teen and is heartbroken she was sent home.
Abdullah Jimzawi, a 20-year-old high school dropout who lives with his parents in Jericho, said he and Katherine Lester had planned to marry and she intended to convert to Islam.
Lester was en route to Tel Aviv airport when she was intercepted in Amman, Jordan, by U.S. authorities who seized her passport and put her on a flight back to the United States.
The couple still speak to each other at least five hours a day via Internet phone calls, said Jimzawi, a shy soft-spoken young man with close-cropped hair and a two-day beard.
"We love the same things, the same songs and we have similar dreams. I fell in love with her because she is innocent and goodhearted. We found ourselves to be soul mates,", he told The Associated Press in an interview in Jericho, a town of 17,000 that is largely immune from the violence plaguing the rest of the West Bank.
Jimzawi and Lester met through MySpace.com, a social networking Web site whose popularity with teenagers has raised concerns among U.S. authorities, with scattered accounts of sexual predators targeting minors on the site.
Jimzawi, who works in his father's business delivering goods to minimarkets, said
his love for Lester is pure. Had she made it to Jericho, he said, she would have shared his sister's bedroom.
The couple would have walked together through the tree-lined streets of Jericho, he said, and he and Lester would have celebrated her 17th birthday Wednesday.
"When I realized she wasn't coming, I felt my whole world collapse," he said in the interview Sunday at his family's home. "My tears didn't stop and I couldn't sleep for three days."
Lester, who boarded a flight to Israel after slipping out of her mother's house in Gilford, Mich., has not spoken to reporters since returning to the United States on June 9. She has taken refuge at an undisclosed location with her father to escape the media frenzy.
Lester's older sister, Mary, said Monday she believes Jimzawi loves her sister and wanted to marry her. But, she said, she can't understand why he arranged for the teen to travel to the Middle East.
"If you love this girl like you say you do, then why don't you come up here?" Mary Lester asked.
She said her sister also denied promising to convert to Islam, saying that was a lie made up by the media.
"I don't think she realizes how serious this is," Mary Lester said. "We've all tried talking to her, but talking to a 16-year-old is like trying to bend steel."
Jimzawi was initially reluctant to talk to the media because of what he said was unfair treatment following Lester's ill-fated trip. However, he eventually agreed to be photographed in shorts and sandals, showing AP reporters the computer on which he said he met Lester eight months ago.
Chickens roamed the front yard outside his middle-class home, which has a small swimming pool, a large porch with a table and many nearby date palms.
In a sitting room with pink curtains, Jimzawi clicked his computer mouse to play a song from Staind, one of his favorite heavy metal bands. Six framed posters of Quranic verses and Islamic prayers adorned the walls, including one depicting the 99 names of God.
Jimzawi, the second of five children, said he explained to Lester that she should convert to Islam to marry him.
"She said, 'No problem because I love you and I love your religion,'" he said.
Jimzawi's mother, Sana, said Lester intended to sign a marriage contract in Jericho. Jimzawi said the couple planned to wait for Lester to turn 18 before getting married.
Jimzawi said he had little interest in going to the U.S. However, 19-year-old Tarek Ali, who said he was Jimzawi's friend, said Jimzawi "wanted to take the SAT exam and study computer engineering in the U.S. That is his dream."
Mahmoud Bali, the owner of a Jericho Internet cafe where Jimzawi once worked, said
the young man spent 10 hours a day in Internet chat rooms or listening to music on the Web.
"I can describe him as a dreamer and romantic person," Bali said. "He loves songs and to chat with people outside of the country and doesn't like to talk to people here."
"Most of the young people who come to my Net cafe, like Abdullah, are people obsessed with Western life and the opportunities there. They like freedom, dancing, listening to music, those things that you can't do here in Palestine, particularly in Jericho."
Jimzawi said his next step will be to apply for a visa to visit Lester.
His mother said she was sorry about the pain Lester's mother must have gone through when her daughter left. "She had the right to be worried," she said.
But she insisted she and Abdullah had the girl's best interests at heart.
"He met a lot of girls on the Internet, but he loves her and he made everyone in the family love her," she said.
