Posted on 05/28/2004 9:17:21 PM PDT by Pikamax
Four Trinidadians have said US authorities questioned them about their contact with a suspected al-Qaeda operative after he visited T&T in 2001.
Adnan G El Shukrijumah was named when US attorney general John Ashcroft warned of intelligence showing al-Qaeda plans for an attack against the United States.
Large photos of El Shukrijumah and six others were displayed at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday.
The Saudi native visited Trinidad for six days in May 2001 and stayed with Zainool Ali, who lives in Chaguanas.
Ali and three others were questioned by US authorities in late 2003, they told AP.
FBI agents interviewed them at their homes, a police station and the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain, they said.
All four said they had not heard from El Shukrijumah since the visit. They also said he never mentioned terrorism or links to al-Qaeda.
Ali said he invited him to stay at his home in Chaguanas.
He said he took El Shukrijumah fishing in his small skiff, took him to a beach and prayed with him in a mosque across the street.
“He never even went anywhere that was questionable,” Ali said.
“He just visited friends, had dinner, went to the beach. It’s very strange that he found himself in this situation.”
US authorities said El Shukrijumah is a possible leader of a terrorism cell or an organiser similar to Mohamed Atta, who was a planner of the September 11 attacks and piloted one of the hijacked planes.
El Shukrijumah went to Guyana to visit relatives when he left Trinidad, Ali said.
Last week, a man in Guyana, George Bacchus, said US Embassy security officials had shown him a photo of El Shukrijumah this year.
Bacchus said he was “90 per cent” sure he had seen the man in a money exchange office in Georgetown as recently as December.
Bacchus has been at the centre of controversy in Guyana, after accusing the country’s interior minister of directing a hit squad that killed his brother.
This month, president Bharrat Jagdeo appointed an independent commission to investigate.
El Shukrijumah’s relatives in Guyana refused to comment on Wednesday. One female relative who refused to give her name said, “We don’t know where he is and we can’t say anything.”
Ali said he spoke last week with El Shukrijumah’s father, who lives in Miramar, Florida.
His parents had not heard from him and did not know where he was, Ali said.
Saudi-born El Shukrijumah, whose father is Guyanese, lived in Trinidad as a child in the1980s. His father taught Arabic and lectured at mosques here. The four Trinidadians said they knew him from that period.
In 2001, the father contacted Ali and told him El Shukrijumah wanted to visit Trinidad. El Shukrijumah was living in Florida at the time.
Imtiaz Mohammed, who also knew the family, said the FBI questioned him twice late last year, with each session lasting about two hours.
They wanted to know when he last saw El Shukrijumah and what they talked about.
Mohammed said they ate lunch together and talked about world politics, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but nothing about terrorism was mentioned, he said.
Mohammed claimed the US officials offered a reward for information.
“I kind of laughed at them and said, ‘I don’t have any information to give you,’” he said.
The others questioned, Munaf Mohammed and Nizam Ali, said they also had nothing to tell authorities since they have not maintained contact with El Shukrijumah.
AP writer Bert Wilkinson, in Georgetown, Guyana, contributed to this report.
The man behind El Shukrijumah
El Shukrijumah is a Saudi native who used to live in South Florida, United States.
Nicknamed Jafar the Pilot, El Shukrijumah is believed to be a possible leader of a terrorism cell or organiser similar to Mohamed Atta, who was a top planner of the September 11 attacks and piloted one of the hijacked planes.
FBI officials began searching for El Shukrijumah last year due in part to the overseas interrogation of captured al-Qaeda senior planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.
Federal prosecutors in northern Virginia last Autumn obtained a warrant to detain him as a material witness.
Authorities say he may be carrying passports from Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia and Canada.
Panamanian Security Council Chief Ramiro Jarvis said El Shukrijumah arrived in Panama legally from the United States in April 2001– five months before the September 11 terror attacks – and stayed in Panama for 10 days. He also visited T&T for six days the next month.
US officials say El Shukrijumah is of particular interest because of his familiarity with the United States, ability to use fake documents and fluency in English.
His family says El Shukrijumah left the Miami area in May 2001 for Morocco and denies he has any terrorist ties.
(AP)
Agents drew blanks in T&T — cops
Police confirmed yesterday that four members of the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) visited Trinidad last year to question four nationals about the whereabouts of Saudi Arabian-born, Adnan G El Shukrijumah.
Police said the FBI agents arrived with the names and addresses of the four Trinidadians, asking for assistance in locating them as part of US authorities’ search for El Shukrijumah.
An elite section of the Police Service took the FBI agents around during their investigations.
AP reporter Michael Smith yesterday identified the four as Zainool Ali, Munaf Mohammed, Imtiaz Mohammed and Nizam Ali.
However, police said the FBI agents were unable to gather useful information from the four on the whereabouts of El Shukrijumah, whose father once lived here and taught at an Islamic school.
However, police said they were able to tell the FBI agents that El Shukrijumah visited Trinidad sometime ago and left for London via a BWIA flight.
Law enforcers here said the Saudi national was in possession of several passports including a T&T one. They could not say how he obtained the T&T document.
“We don’t know where he got it from,” a senior officer said.
El Shukrijumah’s name resurfaced on Wednesday when US Attorney General John Ashcroft warned of intelligence showing al-Qaeda plans for an attack against the United States.
Remember the Muslims once tried a coup there so there's probably still sympathisers available.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/855216.stm
Terminate with extreme prejudice.
Many were jailed but some are running loose. Many Trinis, both Christians and Hindus have close ties here. If they try and hide there, they will be caught. The Muslim population is small and not overly popular.
bttt
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