Thats great i stood within 15 feet of harrison ford TWICE but i still didnt get a part in raiders of the lost arc or temple of doom
Sucks dont it ?
Are you saying that Moussaoui hooked up with this guy after the OKBOMB? A quick google seems to indicate that Moussauoi was getting an MA in London in 95, and came to Norman later on.
Reporter: Kara Kaswell, News 4
November 7, 2001 7:44 PM
(KMOV) -- The FBI wants to know more about Mujahid Menepta's alleged ties to terrorism. Menepta is friends with an associate of Osama bin Laden who is considered to be the "20th hijacker" involved in the terrorists attacks. Menepta, who grew up in North St. Louis, was arrested in a federal roundup following the attacks. He is now charged with illegal possession of firearms.
(supposed to be a photo of Menepta here, but a photo of Moussaoui is inserted above Menepta's mame)
Mujahid Menepta (KMOV)
Menepta defends his friend who is accused of having ties to the hijackers and September 11 terrorist attacks. Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested after seeking pilot training to steer but not land jets. Menepta says his friend is no terrorist.
Days after a TV interview, Menepta, a St. Louis native who has a felony arrest record, was arrested for possessing three guns, including a semi-automatic pistol.
"They had a lot of questions, no doubt about that," says Chester Buchanan.
One of the pistols seized from Menepta was registered to Buchanan of St. Louis. He says the gun was stolen in August. Menepta told the FBI he bought the gun on the street in St. Louis for $125. The FBI questioned Buchanan about the gun.
"What they told me is that the gun was found with a man that might be connected to September 11 and the terrorists. I was stunned, I sure was," Buchanan says.
Menepta grew up Melvin Lattimore in a duplex on Maple in North St. Louis. He attended Soldan High School where he played football. In 1989, he converted to Islam and changed his name.
"I think it's unfair that the government has him in jail. It's a conspiracy on the government's part," says Leon Lattimore, Menepta's brother.
Lattimore says Menepta often prayed at a storefront mosque on Geraldine in North St. Louis and he adds that his brother's religion does not advocate violence and that Menepta is definitely no terrorist.
"I think they are jumping to conclusions. My brother is terrorist nothing," Lattimore says.
Wednesday, a federal court denied bond to Menepta. Instead, they want to further investigate his possible ties to terrorists. He roomed with Moussaoui, who has been linked to the hijackers. An FBI agent also said Wednesday in court that North St. Louis mosque where he worshipped did at one time stockpile weapons.
Link November 10, 2001
No Bail for Friend of Man Suspected of Preparing for Sept. 11 Hijackings
By JO THOMAS
An Oklahoma friend of Zacarias Moussaoui, the man the authorities suspect was meant to be the 20th suicide hijacker in the Sept. 11 attacks, has been ordered held without bail on weapons charges by a federal magistrate in Oklahoma City.
The Oklahoma man, Mujahid Abdulqaadir Menepta, 51, who was arrested on Oct. 11 and taken to New York as a material witness in the World Trade Center investigation, is dangerous and poses a flight risk, Jeffrey Whitney, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, testified at a hearing on Wednesday. He made no specific reference to Mr. Moussaoui.
Without offering many details, Mr. Whitney told the court that some telephone numbers connected with cellphones seized in a search of Mr. Menepta's home in Norman were associated with continuing criminal investigations in Oklahoma City, St. Louis, Detroit, El Paso and Kansas City, Mo. These involve organized crime, drugs and money laundering, he said.
Mr. Whitney told the court that Mr. Menepta, who was born Melvin Lattimore in St. Louis, and changed his name in 1989 after converting to Islam, came to the attention of the authorities the day after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He testified that an informer told federal agents that Mr. Menepta had belonged to an Islamic group in Norman and St. Louis, whose leaders advocated terrorist acts and killing law enforcement agents.
Mr. Whitney also told the court that Mr. Menepta had said the Secret Service told him that one of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 had used his visa number. Mr. Whitney said he could not confirm Mr. Menepta's account.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Mr. Menepta, who lives in Norman, gave several interviews in which he defended Mr. Moussaoui, 33, whom he knew through a mosque. Mr. Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan descent was arrested in Minneapolis on Aug. 17 on immigration charges after he sought lessons on how to fly jets, but expressed no interest in learning how to take off or land.
Mr. Moussaoui lived in Norman last year while a student at the Airman Flight School there. Mr. Menepta told The Daily Oklahoman in an interview on Oct. 2 that he had seen Mr. Moussaoui every day at a local mosque and would be shocked if he were involved in the attacks.
"I think he's a scapegoat," Mr. Menepta told the newspaper in an article published on Oct. 9.
He was arrested as a material witness two days later. Shortly afterward, federal agents said they found a shotgun, a rifle, a semiautomatic pistol and more than 600 rounds of ammunition at Mr. Menepta's home. He told the agents he used the shotgun for hunting.
Mr. Menepta served time in prison for a 1970 robbery in Colorado and was charged with being a felon in possession of firearms.
Susan Otto(McVeigh's first defense attorney), Mr. Menepta's lawyer in Oklahoma City, on Wednesday questioned the truthfulness of the government's informer and observed that no one had been charged with a crime back in 1995.
Mr. Menepta's mother, Cynthia Lattimore, 87, said her son collected guns, nothing more. "He just likes guns," she said. "Not to kill nobody."
Wednesday, a federal court denied bond to Menepta. Instead, they want to further investigate his possible ties to terrorists. He roomed with Moussaoui, who has been linked to the hijackers. An FBI agent also said Wednesday in court that North St. Louis mosque where he worshipped did at one time stockpile weapons.
"Mr. Whitney told the court that Mr. Menepta, who was born Melvin Lattimore in St. Louis, and changed his name in 1989 after converting to Islam, came to the attention of the authorities the day after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. He testified that an informer told federal agents that Mr. Menepta had belonged to an Islamic group in Norman and St. Louis, whose leaders advocated terrorist acts and killing law enforcement agents".
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Notice how differently the spin is on the connection between Menepta and Oklahoma City/1995 in the two links in replies #27 and #28. You have to read both to understand that an informer told the FBI the day after the the OKC bombing that Menepta belonged to a radical Islamic group that hated the United States and talked of destroying government targets.(i.e. Murrah Federal Building)
Why would the Oklahoman omit reporting on the court testimony that connected Menepta to the OKC Bombing?
This link states Minepta is an African American and uses another name in addition to Lattimore.
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Do not forget that, at this time, Imam Jamil al-Amin, formerly known as H. rap brown ( who was the leader of the Student Non-VIolent Coordinating Committee, and Minister of Justice for the Black Panther Party during the 1960's) is still in an Atlanta jail facing the death penalty foor a crime he did'nnt committ. go to www.imamjamil.com
This is an article about Mujaheed Abdul-qaader, an African-American Muslim recently arrested
Story from the www.stlimc.org newswire
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Article by: Umar ben-Ivan
Wednesday 07 Nov 2001
Email: umarlee@excite.com
Summary:A St. louis man, currently living in Norman, Ok has been investigated for possible connections to alledged 20th bomber because of media interviews.
Article:
Mujaheed Abdul-Qaader, a lifelong St. Louisan, now livng in Oklahoma has been arrested on weapons charges after being investigated after an interview in which he defended the alledged 20th hijacker, Zacharrias Moussai- a Morrocan ,who the FBI alledges was a part of the 9-11 conspiracy.
Abdul-Qaader, once known as Melvin Lattimore, was a star football player at Soldan high school in the 1960\'s. After high school he went on to become an activist in the black liberation struggle.In the 1980\'s he became a devout Muslim, and during the 1990\'s he became an imam at two St. louis Mosques, Masjid at-Taqwa wa-Jihad and the Islamic Institute of Learning.Abdul-Qaader, members say, was known for his kindess, religous knowledge and giving nature. He often worked with local street gang members to try and get them off of the street.
A current resident of Norman, OK, he was interviewed several times by local media. Local talk show callers had called for his death and the Muslim community came under a great deal of harassment.
Using his interviews as evidence, his home was raided and a three guns where found. Because he was convicted of a crime more than 30 years ago in St. Louis, while it was still under legal aparthied, he was charged as a felon in posession of a firearm.However, the police are making no secret that they are holding him and investigating him in relation to terrorism.
The message is very clear. Now, not just immigrant Muslims, but all Muslims are under suspicion.Furthermore, all Americans should be alarmed that giving statements to the media, that the imperialist government does\'nt like ,can be grounds for survelliance, harassment and incarceration.
Criticizing the FBI
As a U.S. citizen and Muslim convert, Mujahid Abdulqaadir Menepta was the perfect person to serve as a liaison between the Muslim community in Norman and the outside world.
So when the international press came calling after Sept. 11 to discuss Moussaoui, the outspoken Menepta stepped up. Like others at the mosque, he said he knew Moussaoui but found him difficult to like.
Still, Menepta told reporters, he had doubts about Moussaoui's alleged connections to Al Qaeda. Menepta recalled a conversation in which Moussaoui said that football was against the tenets of Islam because it is a form of violence between men.
Menepta, 52, related that story to the press, but he went further, criticizing the FBI for conducting a witch hunt in the wake of the detentions of Alattas and others.
Within days, on Oct. 11, Menepta himself was arrested as a material witness, according to federal court records.
The material witness arrest came even though Menepta had cooperated with investigators, granting numerous interviews to numerous agents between Sept. 11 and his arrest, according to the testimony of a federal agent.
"They told me I was under arrest but wasn't charged with anything," Menepta said in a telephone interview from the Oklahoma County Detention Center. "We went through that for about two hours. It was like, `Who's on second base?'"
Menepta was sent to New York, where he was held in solitary confinement, records show, making his case one of the few to come to light nationwide involving the detention of a U.S. citizen as a material witness.
Before being shipped to Manhattan, Menepta had told federal agents in Oklahoma that he had three guns in his Norman home, including an assault-style weapon, that were recovered through a search warrant, records show. More than 30 years ago, Menepta was convicted on an aggravated robbery charge in Colorado, making it a federal crime for him to possess a weapon.
After he was cleared as a material witness in New York, he was sent back to Oklahoma City to face federal charges for being a felon in possession of a firearm, records show.
"It's certainly not a secret that we come to search his house in connection with the [Sept. 11] investigation," said McCampbell, the U.S. attorney in Oklahoma. But even though Menepta had no links to terrorism, he said, "we found a crime and we prosecuted it."
Menepta is one of more than 100 people picked up nationwide in the Sept. 11 sweep to face criminal charges unrelated to the attacks. His arrest sent shock waves through the Muslim community in Norman.
"It was like, if they can do this to a citizen for speaking out, they can do this to any of us," said one Muslim immigrant who attends the Norman mosque and spoke on condition that he not be named.
A federal judge ordered Menepta held without bond. He pleaded guilty to the gun charge and earlier this month received a 15-month jail sentence.
His now-estranged wife also got caught in the dragnet. While interviewing her about her husband, agents discovered she had yet to report her recent marriage to Menepta to state welfare authorities. During that period, she allegedly collected more than $1,000 in housing benefits, $644 in public assistance and $789 in food stamps. State authorities hit her with charges related to welfare fraud.
Now Menepta wonders what will become of him when his seven remaining months of confinement are up.
After his sentencing, he says, the prosecutor on the case wished him luck.
"Good luck? What am I going to do? Where am I going to work?" Menepta said from a jail pay phone. "It's insinuated that I am a terrorist. . . . So who will hire me? This is just going to be an ongoing thing."