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For Palestinian, a star-crossed Web romance

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published June 20, 2006

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 Jinzawi, 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 Jinzawi, 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 good-hearted. We found ourselves to be soulmates," he said.

Jinzawi 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.

Jinzawi, 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 room. "When I realized she wasn't coming, I felt my whole world collapse," he said. "My tears didn't stop and I couldn't sleep for three days."

Lester, who boarded a flight to Israel after leaving her mother's house in Gilford, Mich., has not spoken to reporters since returning to the United States on June 9. Lester's older sister, Mary, said Monday she believes Jinzawi loves her sister and wanted to marry her. But she can't understand why he arranged Katherine's 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."

[Last modified June 19, 2006, 22:40:51]