Posted on 03/14/2003 8:40:49 PM PST by Abar
A second man with ties to the University of Idaho has been arrested by federal agents in a widening investigation of a suspected terrorist-related web in the Moscow, Idaho-Pullman, Wash., area, an FBI source confirmed today.
Former Idaho student Bassem K. Khafagi was arrested in January at the Marriott Hotel near New York City’s LaGuardia Airport and was returned to Michigan to face bank fraud charges, court documents show.
A total of four men with ties to the Moscow-Pullman area and the Michigan-based Islamic Assembly of North America have been implicated in the investigation.
They include current University of Idaho student Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, who was arrested in late February, about a month after Khafagi, and is in custody in Boise, Idaho.
Federal investigators allege the nonprofit IANA, which says it was formed to promote Islam, funneled money to activities supporting terrorism. Khafagi was a founding member of the assembly.
“There is a very strong University of Idaho tie to that organization (IANA),” the FBI agent told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. “It’s safe to say this investigation, because of the ongoing nature, is going to reveal additional information in the future.”
Khafagi has performed some freelance community outreach work for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit [terrorist front] group that seeks to promote a positive view of Muslims. A group spokesman today criticized the FBI for linking Khafagi to terrorism.
“All they are talking about here is some business dispute over a check and an immigration problem,” the official, who requested anonymity, told the AP. “This has nothing to do with terrorism and nothing to do with CAIR.”
Khafagi’s arrest was first reported in The Spokesman-Review newspaper in today’s editions.
Khafagi is charged with bouncing a $6,000 check in February 2002 to National City Bank of Ann Arbor, Mich., which is insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., making the crime a federal offense.
Moscow is home to the University of Idaho and Pullman is home to Washington State University. The towns are just eight miles apart, an isolated pocket of academia surrounded by farm fields far from large population centers. Both schools have students from Arab countries.
Investigators also have identified a third former University of Idaho student, who now lives in Detroit, as an associate of IANA. He has not been charged and the FBI agent refused to disclose his name.
The Spokesman-Review reported that a former Washington State University student, Ismail Diab, who lived in the area as recently as last August, is being held as a material witness in the investigation. Washington State University officials today could not confirm that Diab was a student at the Pullman school.
IANA is affiliated with Help the Needy, another nonprofit organization based in Syracuse, N.Y., also under investigation by the FBI. Four Arab men were arrested there in February and are accused of raising $4 million for unnamed individuals in Iraq through Help the Needy.
Khafagi and Al-Hussayen are being held for investigation of violating U.S. immigration laws while awaiting separate trials on the fraud charges.
Al-Hussayen, a Saudi national, is being held in Boise on charges of visa fraud and lying to federal agents. He has pleaded innocent to an 11-count federal indictment, and his trial is set for April 15.
Al-Hussayen is accused of making false statements on student visa applications and helping set up Web sites to gather money for terrorism against Americans. Prosecutors said a computer which Al-Hussayen used had thousands of photographs, including the World Trade Center towers before and after the Sept. 11 terrorism attacks.
Al-Hussayen’s attorneys and friends in Moscow dispute the government’s contention that Al-Hussayen has led a life on the fringes of terrorism.
But federal investigators contend Al-Hussayen and IANA provided Web sites for two radical Saudi sheiks, Salman Al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali, who have direct contact with Osama bin Laden. IANA operated more than a dozen Internet sites, many of them managed by Al-Hussayen.
Khafagi, an Egyptian national, enrolled at the University of Idaho in 1986 and earned a master’s degree in civil engineering in August 1988, school officials say. His specialty was structural engineering.
After getting his degree, Khafagi remained enrolled at the University of Idaho, working as a teaching assistant in engineering and taking postgraduate classes.
He moved to East Lansing, Mich., and enrolled at Michigan State University in the fall of 1990, MSU records show. He received his doctorate in civil engineering, specializing in structural engineering, in 1993. He later lived in Ann Arbor, Mich., operating a business called International Media Group from his home, court documents showed. It was not clear what kind of business it was, court records said.
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