Edited for brevity.
A refugee from the troubled Darfur region of Sudan, who entered the United States illegally and spent five months in Pennsylvania jails, is free on bond in Pittsburgh now, seeking political asylum in hopes of bearing witness to the genocide at home. "I am a man without a country," said Hashim Adam Mersal, 25, flanked by two attorneys and his Pittsburgh sponsor in a Downtown law office on Monday. "I have witnessed so many atrocities. I cannot understand the silence of the world," he said through a interpreter. "They are wiping out my people and nobody seems interested."
Mr. Mersal entered the country last May through Dulles International Airport near Washington, D.C., using a phony diplomatic passport from Chad. For two months, he moved among Sudanese exile communities in Washington, New York and Indiana. On July 29, he was riding in a car with other young men from Sudan when Pennsylvania state troopers pulled them over on Interstate 80. According to his court-appointed lawyer, Bill Kaczynski, Mr. Mersal showed the police his passport and told them it was a fake. "He was very forthright and didn't try to hide anything," Mr. Kaczynski said.
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