Two men arrested at Schiphol airport at the behest of the US authorities on Monday have strongly denied any involvement in terrorism, lawyer Klaas-Arjen Krikke said on Tuesday evening.

Hezam al-Murisi (37) and 48-year-old Ahmed Mohamed Nasser al-Soofi are being held on suspicion of conspiracy to ‘conspiracy to a terrorist criminal act’ the public prosecution department said on Tuesday.
‘He (al-Murisi) is very shocked. He does not understand what is going on and denies ever having had anything to do with terrorism,’ the lawyer said in the Telegraaf. ‘He is very emotional and just wantst o go back to his family and sees all this as a bad dream.’
Charges
The US authorities are being kept informed about the progress of the investigation but no more information will be given out at the present time, the department said.
‘In a few days it will be made public if they will be charged,’ the department said in a statement.
The two men, both Yemini nationals who were not on the US no fly list, were on a connecting flight from Chicago to Yemen via Schiphol when they were arrested.
Phones
Dutch police had been alerted after US officials found a number of suspect items in luggage belonging to one of the men which had been put on a flight to Washington.
According to the New York Daily News, airport security screeners in Birmingham, Alabama first stopped one of the men and referred him to additional screening because of what officials said was his ‘bulky clothing’.
He was found to be carrying $7,000 in cash. A check of his luggage found a mobile phone taped to a bottle, a number of mobile phones taped together, three large knives and a number of watches.
Cleared
But there was no indication of explosives and he and his luggage were cleared for the flight from Birmingham to Chicago.
CNN now reports the two men did not know each other and both had missed the flight to Washington.
‘An initial United States investigation into two men arrested at Schiphol International Airport in the Netherlands shows no evidence of terrorism and no indication the men even knew each other,’ CNN said, quoting US officials.