Posted on 04/28/2006 9:26:13 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
A Pakistani man charged with lying to immigration authorities by falsely claiming he was a Nobel Prize nominee to obtain a U.S. visa is now also accused of having ties to a leader of an international terrorist organization.
A federal judge in Oakland ordered Shehrezad Faruk Czar, 38, jailed Thursday after prosecutors said he admitted exchanging e-mails with Altaf Hussain, head of the Pakistan-based Muttahida Quami Movement, or MQM.
Hussain is in exile in London after being sentenced in absentia in Pakistan to 27 years in prison for helping organize the murder of four Americans and their Pakistani driver in 1997 and other crimes, prosecutors said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Lewis Davis wrote in court papers filed Thursday against Czar that the government "is not prepared at this time to suggest that the defendant is involved in terrorism," but called Czar's motives for contacting Hussain "suspicious."
Czar said Hussain was helping him obtain a banking license, according to prosecutors.
Czar has pleaded not guilty to a charge of making a false swearing in an immigration matter and is being held without bail. He was ordered to return to court Monday.
Prosecutors said Czar falsely claimed in his May 2001 application at the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan that he was nominated for the Nobel for research in economics, quantum physics and mathematical sciences.
He was also accused of faking an honorary doctorate from and positions as ambassador emeritus and professor emeritus at the University of Berkley, an online correspondence school that prosecutors said never awarded him the honors.
Prosecutors said Czar may have intentionally tried to confuse the school with the University of California, Berkeley.
The indictment did not say whether Czar was granted the visa.
New one on me....Lock him up for brazen exaggeration...nominee for Nobel prize.,,,Geez!
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