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.
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."