http://spokesmanreview.com/news-story.asp?date=011004&ID=s1469509 (requires registration)
Spokesman-Review Student faces terror charges Saudi accused of providing support while at UI
Bill Morlin Staff writer
Al-Hussayen
A University of Idaho graduate student from Saudi Arabia, awaiting trial on visa fraud charges, was indicted Friday on charges of providing material support to terrorists.
The expanded case against Sami Omar Al-Hussayen is among only a handful of Justice Department prosecutions involving individuals in the United States suspected of aiding international terrorists.
Al-Hussayen is accused of managing terrorist Web sites, funneling money for suspected terrorist-front organizations and supporting two Saudi sheiks linked to Osama bin Laden.
His attorney, David Nevin, denied the charges on Friday.
"Sami doesn't favor terrorism, he's not a terrorist and he's not a supporter of terrorists," Nevin said.
The 34-year-old student is pursuing a computer science doctorate at the university in Moscow, Idaho.
He is accused of moderating a worldwide e-mail group for 2,400 Muslim activists pledged to a violent holy war against the West.
The indictment alleges the group's Internet postings included terrorist training camp instructions and an "urgent appeal" to Muslims in the U.S. military, asking them to identify potential U.S. targets in the Middle East.
The list of requested targets included U.S. military bases, weapons and petroleum facilities and routes followed by oil tankers. One posting urged an attack on a particular high-ranking U.S. military officer, not identified in the indictment.
Other postings by Al-Hussayen "glorified" and urged financial support for families of Islamic suicide bombers who die for the holy war, or jihad, the indictment says.
It also accuses Al-Hussayen of conspiring to conceal and disguise the nature of his work supporting terrorist activities.
The new charge is in addition to seven counts of visa fraud and four counts accusing Al-Hussayen of lying in his applications to study in the United States.
His attorney, Nevin, questioned the timing of the indictment, just 11 days before his client is scheduled to stand trial on visa fraud and false statement charges.
That trial likely will be postponed, possibly as early as Monday when Al-Hussayen appears in Boise before a U.S. magistrate judge on the new, more serious charges.
Al-Hussayen has been in jail since his arrest last February on the university's Moscow campus. His wife and children are scheduled to voluntarily return to Saudi Arabia.
Nevin also questioned the constitutionality of the new charges returned by a 23-member grand jury.
"The allegations ... even if you accept them all as being true, they're talking about speech," Nevin said. "I don't think this charge is constitutional."
While the defense attorney said the new case involves free-speech issues, federal investigators say it's far more than that.
The case against Al-Hussayen was developed over the past three years by the Inland Northwest Joint Terrorism Task Force, based in Spokane.
"It's the responsibility of this task force to detect, deter, disrupt and dismantle terrorist organizations," said spokesman Norm Brown. "We feel we're on the right path in this case."
Al-Hussayen came to the United States in 1994 to attend Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., where he earned a master of science degree in computer science. He attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, before enrolling at the University of Idaho in 1999 to seek a doctoral degree in computer security.
His alleged involvement with suspected terrorist Web sites began about that same time, the indictment says.
"Al-Hussayen knew and intended that his computer services and expertise would be used to recruit and raise funds for violent holy war in Israel, Chechnya and elsewhere, involving the destruction of property, kidnapping, maiming and murder," said Thomas Moss, U.S. attorney for Idaho.
Al-Hussayen was an employee of the [terrorist]Islamic Assembly of North America, a charitable, nonprofit organization formed in the United States, the indictment alleges.[as well as past president of the terrrorist muslim Students Association, MSA]
The Saudi's native country paid for his college tuition and provided him and his family with living expenses[AND LAWYER], it says.
Since 1994, Al-Hussayen has maintained at least six bank accounts in four states. In the past six years, those accounts received and dispersed more than $300,000 in excess of the study-related funds Al-Hussayen received from Saudi Arabia, the indictment says.
The funds in Al-Hussayen's accounts were used to pay for travel in the United States and overseas by other individuals associated with the Islamic Assembly, the indictment says.
The Islamic charity remains under investigation, but has not been designated by the United States as a "specially designated global terrorist" organization.
Al-Hussayen also was a representative of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a charity based in his native Saudi Arabia, the indictment says.
Six months after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the United States designated branches of Al-Haramain in Bosnia and Somalia as global terrorist organizations.
Al-Hussayen signed contracts on behalf of Al-Haramain and provided assistance in that organization's Internet-related business and activities, the indictment says.
On the Web sites, two radical Saudi sheiks, Salman Al-Awdah and Safar al-Hawali, frequently published fatwahs, or religious degrees, urging and justifying suicide bombings and other forms of violent jihad.
Experts say the sheiks have direct contact with Osama bin Laden, and share his violent, anti-Western views.