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Prosecutors on Tuesday played portions of a recorded interrogation Arthurs gave in the hours immediately after he was arrested in the killings of Jeremy Himmelman and Andrew Oneschuk. In the video, Arthurs offers a justification for the killings, claiming that Russell, the surviving roommate, was preparing to commit acts of terrorism.

“The things they were planning were horrible,” Arthurs said. “These people were not good people.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office presented the video excerpts in an effort to get U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas B. McCoun III to revoke an order granting Russell bail, arguing that he poses a danger to the community.

Late Tuesday, the judge stayed the order. Russell will remain jailed while the judge reconsiders the issue.

Russell, 21, faces explosives charges after bombmaking materials were found at his Tampa Palms apartment May 19 during the murder investigation. Arthurs, separately, has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in state court.

In the video, Arthurs sits beside a table in a white-walled interrogation room, his right leg resting over his left knee. He gestures with both hands as he casually describes Russell’s neo-Nazi beliefs and supposed plans to commit terrorist acts.

He said Russell studied how to build nuclear weapons in school and is “somebody that literally has knowledge of how to build a nuclear bomb.”

When a Tampa police detective asked Arthurs if his friends had any specific terrorist intentions, he said they had a plan to blow up power lines along Alligator Alley, the stretch of Interstate 75 linking Naples with Fort Lauderdale.

He also said they had a plan to fire mortars loaded with nuclear material into the cooling units of a nuclear power plant near Miami.

He said the damage would cause “a massive reactor failure” and spread “irradiated water” throughout the ocean……

Assistant U.S. Attorney Josephine Thomas noted during the hearing that the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station is near Miami. She also noted that when bomb squad members arrived at Russell’s apartment, their pagers alerted them to the presence of “two radiation sources.” The criminal complaint says those were thorium and americium, both radioactive metals.

Russell’s defense attorney, Ian Goldstein, noted that authorities have not charged him with possession of nuclear materials……http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/judge-sets-release-conditions-for-neo-nazi-in-tampa-palms-explosives-case/2327088