Posted on 02/27/2003 4:51:13 AM PST by JohnHuang2
The FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested a Saudi Arabian man studying computer security at the University of Idaho who is charged with channeling funds and helping set up a website for an Islamic group that urges violence against the United States.
The Justice Department also announced that a U.S. charity in upstate New York and four people associated with it were charged with illegally sending millions of dollars to Iraq.
Idaho graduate student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34, was taken into custody at 4 a.m. at his apartment on the university's campus in Moscow, Idaho, according to a Spokane, Wash., television station. Dozens of agents with warrants searched several locations, said NBC affiliate KHQ, including the school's engineering lab and off-campus apartment.
The Saudi citizen is charged with supporting the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America, or IANA.
The IANA says its aim is to coordinate the efforts of many groups on the continent engaged in the propagation of Islam, or dawah. Websites operated by the group praise suicide bombings and promote the use of airplanes as terror weapons, the indictment said.
The organization's office in Ann Arbor, Mich., did not answer calls seeking comment on the arrest today.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, citing anonymous criminal justice sources, reported in August that the FBI was investigating charitable donations by Muslim students and organizations at the University of Idaho and at Washington State University, eight miles away, for possible links to international terrorism.
The Seattle paper said at the time that the inquiry is an integral part of efforts to understand a labyrinthine financial network that the Justice Department believes funded the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Al-Hussayen was mentioned in the August story as president of the university's Muslim Student Association and a doctoral student from Saudi Arabia. The P-I said, however, that he declined to comment on reports of an investigation.
The Saudi man is charged with supplying IANA with money from overseas sources, providing computer expertise and with failing to disclose his relationship with the group.
The Justice Department said that if the connection to the group had been known at the time of his application, he would not have been issued a visa.
The indictment cited an article posted on a website, www.alasr.ws, registered by Al-Hussayen:
"The second part is the rule that the Mujahid [warrior] must kill himself if he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies, and that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first, or demolishing a center vital to the enemy or its military force, and so on. This is not possible except by involving the human element in the operation. In this new era, this can be accomplished with the modern means of bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will cause the enemy great losses."
Married with children
Al-Hussayen, who was studying for an advanced degree in computer security, is married with three children and has been on campus for years, the Spokane television station said.
He was taken to the Latah County Jail but is expected to be transferred to Boise where he will appear in federal court.
If convicted of the charges, Al-Hussayen faces a maximum sentence of 25 years in prison on each of the visa fraud counts and five years in prison on each false statement count.
Al-Hussayen has a page on the University of Idaho's website that lists his educational background. [Editor's note: Since publication of this story, access to the page was restricted]. It says he earned a B.A. in computer engineering from King Saud University in 1992 and a M.A. in computer science from Ball State University in 1997.
Under the heading of "My Interest in Computer Security," he wrote: "A look at the world today, will show the dependency on computers in general and the Internet specifically. In order for the Internet to keep growing and provide us with better life. It has to be secure. And I want to contribute to this goal."
A June 1999 IANA document listed Al-Hussayen as a member of both the technical committee and advisory committee for a project called IANA Radionet, which aimed to broadcast Islamic programs over the Internet.
Iraq laundering
Meanwhile, a U.S. charity and four people associated with it were charged in Syracuse, N.Y., with violating government bans by transferring as much as $2.7 million to Iraq.
A group they established called Help the Needy sought contributions, deposited the money in central New York banks and then sent it to Iraq through the Jordan Islamic Bank in Amman, the indictment charged.
The indictment does not specify a link between Help the Needy and the Moscow, Idaho, case, but the August Seattle P-I story said signs advertising the group were on display in the mosques in the university town and in Pullman, Wash., home of Washington State University.
Help the Needy was established in 1993 to provide food, clothes and lodging for orphans and families as well as medicines for hospitals in Iraq, the group's website says.
The indictment, unsealed this morning, charges the following defendants:
The Justice Department said the four defendants and two organizations are charged with conspiring to transfer funds to Iraq in violation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Dhafir, Zagha and the two organizations are charged with 12 counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to commit money laundering.
"As President Bush leads an international coalition to end Saddam Hussein's tyranny and support for terror, the Justice Department will see that individuals within our borders cannot undermine these efforts," stated Attorney General John Ashcroft. "Those who covertly seek to channel money into Iraq under the guise of charitable work will be caught and prosecuted."
If convicted, Dhafir and Zagha face up to 265 years in prison and fines of more than $14 million. Jarwan and Al Wahaidy each face up to 5 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Help the Needy and Help the Needy Endowment, Inc. each face maximum possible fines of $14 million.
The prosecution resulted from a three-year investigation.
What kind of doctor would this man really be? I find it hard to believe he'd take care of his patients on one hand and plot to blow them up on the other. Scary. These men must be great actors.
Good post. It's interesting how many of these people are medical doctors. But the Nazis had their doctors too, like Josef Mengele.
But one question: Where is Fayetteville NY?
Also from Ball State U (Indiana): our own David Letterman.
Not dissing either Ball State or University of Idaho, but it's interesting how these people somehow manage to find and burrow into US colleges which one might guess would not be that well known on the other side of the world - no security through obscurity. Are there consultants or businesses who broker this, the way there are for H-1B recruitment?
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