Al-Kidd: 'I'm not a terrorist'

BELLEVUE -- A former University of Idaho football player said he is not tied to terrorists and is shocked at the way he's been treated by federal agents the past two weeks.

Abdullah Al-Kidd was arrested as he prepared to board a jetliner at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C. He is jailed in Boise, Idaho, as a material witness in an investigation of an alleged terrorist group with links to the university.

"Basically, don't believe the hype," Al-Kidd told the King County Journal during a jailhouse interview on Sunday night. "I'm not a terrorist. I'm as American as apple pie."

The 30-year-old former track and football star graduated from Lindbergh High in Renton, and was a running back for Idaho. He now lives in Kent. On his attorney's advice, he declined to discuss specifics of his case with the newspaper.

Al-Kidd was arrested in the investigation of two Islamic charities, the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America and Help the Needy, an offshoot of the IANA.

The FBI wants information from Al-Kidd in the case of Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who was arrested Feb. 26. Al-Hussayen, a Saudi doctoral student in computer science at the University of Idaho, was indicted last month. He is believed to have financed and administered Web sites for the IANA.

Court documents allege Al-Kidd or his wife, Nadine Zegura, received more than $20,000 from Al-Hussayen and his associates from March 2000 to November 2001.

Federal agents feared Al-Kidd might not have returned to testify if he had left the country, court documents said.

Al-Kidd, a convert to Islam formerly known as Lavoni Kidd, said he doesn't know why he was arrested. He hasn't been charged with a crime and is not accused of being a terrorist. He denied he was fleeing the country when he was arrested March 16 at Dulles.

"If I was fleeing, I had two visas and could have left the country in January. But I had a job and an apartment and things to settle," he said. "I had no knowledge of a federal warrant. If I had known, I would've turned myself in."

As he prepared to leave his job in Seattle at YouthCare, where he worked as a counselor for homeless teens, he learned he had gotten a four-year scholarship to study Islam in Saudi Arabia.

He denied the government's claim that he was leaving on a $5,000, one-way ticket out of the country. The Saudi embassy had paid $1,700 for a roundtrip, open-ended ticket, he said.

"If they would've just given me a call, I would've taken a flight to Boise," he said. "But they didn't."

He was mortified when he was cuffed and led through the airport, while other passengers stared.

"Everybody was looking at me like they just captured a terrorist right there in Dulles airport," he said. "I mean, here I am, dressed in Muslim garb and I have my beard.

"Sometimes I break down in tears thinking about my mother and the people calling her, crying and wanting to know what's going on," he added.

I knew Lavoni Kidd in the 80's and 90's and know him as nothing more than a stand up guy. I played sports against him from the 7th grade on through high school. Imagine my surprise when I did a random search and this article came up. Lavoni and I would hit each other as hard as we could during a football game intent on causing bodily harm to each other but at the end of the game or at the end of the track meet we would be laughing and having a grand time. I know people change, sometimes for the worst but I really don't see Lavoni as anything more than a deeply impassioned and religious person. I've travelled and lived around the world and I've tasted many religions and cultures. I've sat and dined with Muslims and Jews at their tables in their respective countries. I've prayed with Buddhist Monks in Tibet and Thailand and walked in the footsteps of Jesus Christ through the streets of Jerusalem. I've seen people that are so into their religion like Kidd. Hell, you don't even have to go far to witness that kind of religious fervor. Just turn on the Trinity Channel or any of those other B.S. Church Channels that ask you to send in money for salvation. Go to a local AA meeting or 12 step meeting. You'll meet people that "find God" to help them cope. In reading some of these comments and replies on this site and a lot of sites to be quite honest. The thing I see when reading these comments are stupid people who have never left the country or their back yard for that matter. Americans are the joke of the world. Sure we're a GLOBAL SUPER POWER, but we're likened to the stupid, ignorant, bumbling school yard bully compared to the smarter kids that receive our afternoon recess wrath. During my travels, it was always the loud, crass, ignorant Americans who disturbed my reverie in the Louvre or had to be thrown out of my friend's bar in Ibiza. Who spilled the wine and laughed about it at the adjoining table in Caprese, Italy. I'm a proud American, a college educated Asian American who has served in the military, Army. My college educated father was in the Army and both of my college educated Grandfathers were in the Army. My allegiance to this country cannot be questioned. But I think that Americans should learn that there are other things out there than what's on TV. I believe that every US high school student should either: a)travel abroad for a year or b) work in the service industry. American children grow up thinking that the world owes them something. That the world revolves around them and by travelling abroad they get a taste of the world and of boundaries beyond their neighborhoods or where Grandma lives. And I don't mean those all-inclusive Mexico trips that parents dole out to graduating high school seniors. I mean traveling. In a small group, even alone. A person finds themself when they are thousands of miles from their friends and family and in a country where they have to be self-sufficient. Self-introspection, it's a beautiful thing. The Sabrina factor. The Audrey Hepburn one, not the Julia Ormond debacle. By working in the service industry, they learn humility. To be able to work with people and that what they want isn't always what they get. Politeness and tact are crucial in this world and it's amazing how many people don't have those kindergarten skills.

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