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"I went to the passport office before the shootings and complained and they didn't believe," said Keithly Nedd, who lives in St John's, the Antiguan capital.

THOMAS... Muhammad's certificate valid
Neither the island's police commissioner, Truehart Smith, nor senior passport officials were available yesterday to comment on Nedd's claim about the passport racket and that Muhammad was once arrested at Antigua's V C Bird International Airport, but released.

Muhammad, who was John Allen Williams before he changed his surname, lived in Antigua sometime between 2000 and possibly up to earlier this year.

But it would have been easy for him to come and go for he acquired an Antiguan passport in July 2000, on the right of citizenship by descent because his mother was ostensibly Antiguan.

In supporting documentation for his June 2000 application, Muhammad produced an Antiguan birth certificate of a woman named for that of Antiguan, Eva Ferris, born in St John's 12 November, 1929.

"This is a valid certificate," said Ena Thomas, the head of the passport division of Antigua's foreign ministry on Friday. "It has the seal of the Registrar General and was extracted on June 6, 2000."

Muhammad's own birth certificate, showing that Williams was born in New Orleans on December 31, 1960, also gave his mother's name as Eva Feris, but spelt with a single "r". His real mother's name, Merdie Holiday, was substituted in the document.

The Antiguan birth certificate was real, officials in St John's say.

There is an Antigua-born woman named Ferris, who lives in Connecticut.

She is the mother of a well-known Antiguan broadcaster, Maxine Allen, and Muriel Allen-Bennett, a teacher at Greensville Primary, where Muhammad's three children -- Salena, John Amah Jr, and Taalibah -- attended when they lived in Antigua after he had spirited them out of the United States following the break-up of his second marriage. Eva Ferris has a third child, a son who was born on December 23, 1960, eight days before Muhammad's birth date.

Eva Ferris' family in Antigua have hired local lawyer Harold Lovell to protect their interest and he has called for a full investigation by the Antiguan authorities.

"I feel that there is need for the local passport authorities to engage in a serious investigation to determine how this individual could acquire a false passport under false pretence and to determine how this could be prevented in the future," said Lovell, an Opposition senator.

But Nedd, a motor mechanic and handyman, insisted yesterday that Muhammad was involved in more than this single act of suspected fraud.

The ex-soldier and Gulf War veteran, who is accused of killing 10 people in the Washington area, had ways of getting Antiguan passports, said Nedd.

According to Nedd, he came to know Muhammad because of a relationship he had with a Jamaican woman who shared a house with Muhammad and his children

"I saw him with five (Antigua) passports at one time," Nedd said. "He must have had his contacts. He would leave the house at midnight and sometime put on a disguise and make his move."

Nedd also claimed that Muhammad operated a smuggling operation, in some cases using the portion of an airline ticket of a US traveller to send an illegal immigrant to the United States in the visitor's name.

"He sent people to America with forged US birth papers," Nedd said.

Muhammad and a 17-year-old Jamaican boy, Lee Boyd Malvo, were arrested in Maryland on Thursday in connection with the sniper killings that terrified the Washington area for three weeks and turned into one of America's most dramatic manhunts ever.

Nelson and other persons say Muhammad came into contact with Malvo because of an affair he had with Malvo's mother, Una James, who was living in the community of Villa about four miles from Ottos, where Muhammad lived.

James apparently left Malvo with Muhammad after he arranged for her to travel to the US as part of his immigration racket.

Nedd claimed to have tipped off Antigua police about Muhammad's activities and that Muhammad was once held at the airport as he prepared to go abroad on a trip.