'Reformed Muslim Terrorists' Preach Christ to College Kids

In response, the men have spent significant time trying to prove that they actually did kill people, and that they used to hate Jews as much as the next Muslim extremist. "I planted a bomb in a bank!" insists Shoebat, whose handler, Keith Davies, has threatened a libel suit against The Times over the article that questioned his claims.

As the controversy waxed last week, Columbia University's American Assembly distanced itself from the whole affair. "They did not come across to me as credible representatives of anything," says Megan Wynne, program coordinator at the American Assembly. She called the choice of speakers a "giant failure of oversight" by the Air Force Academy.

Meanwhile, some of the New York students continue to wonder how it is that the three alleged former terrorists are still at large, without being brought to account for any of their past crimes. "When I was listening to them, the only thing I could think of is, 'Why are they not in jail somewhere? Why are they out?' " says Haider Hamza, a New School student of global security. "I thought it was really inappropriate to bring us halfway around the world to sit down and make us listen to men who [claim to have] killed hundreds of people, and listen to them tell us what is right and wrong."