Man Who Stole Livingston School Bus Indicted By Grand Jury

LIVINGSTON, NJ — A Saudi Arabian man was indicted Thursday for transporting a stolen school from Livingston across state lines to Pennsylvania, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Bader Alzahrani, 22, of Saudi Arabia, was charged by indictment with one count of receipt of a stolen vehicle and one count of transportation of a stolen vehicle.

He already been arrested and charged by complaint with the same offenses back in January.

At the time, various North Jersey school officials warned parents to make sure they were putting their kids on the correct school bus, after a bus was reported missing from a Livingston parking lot. READ MORE: Update On School Bus Theft In Livingston: Suspect's Name Released

Alzahrani was found in Stroudsburg, Pa., with the keys to the bus on him two days after it disappeared.

An investigation of a Hillside Avenue home break-in on Jan. 15 led investigators to Alzahrani, after they found a backpack with a Saudi Arabian passport and journals inside it, federal officials said.

The journals, written in Arabic and English, included messages about war, rage and destruction, and messages blaming Jews, prosecutors said.

“This is a war, and there will be losses, and collateral losses," the journal reads in Arabic, according to a federal complaint. “It is a war and y’all [sic] started, feel the rage.”

Alzahrani also wrote, prosecutors contend: "Jews control everything."

The criminal complaint from January stated that Alzahrani "is in the United States on a student
visa. However, in or around October 2022, Alzahrani left the university in which he was enrolled and was reported missing."

Officials have not said publicly what they believe Alzahrani's intentions were with the bus. He also has not been charged with actually stealing the bus.

The indictment can be found here.