Reminds me of another government job test scandal...
Posted on 06/11/2005 7:51:22 AM PDT by Grampa Dave
NVC cops tell FBI of suspicious police exam Two arrested after Lodi man ducked out of academy test; no clear link to on-going terrorist probe Saturday, June 11, 2005
By MARSHA DORGAN Register Staff Writer
As an investigation of possible terrorist activity unfolds in Lodi, law enforcement officials in Napa acknowledge that in April they contacted federal authorities after arresting a Lodi resident who suspiciously ducked out of a Napa Valley College Police Academy exam and had someone else take his place.
Zakariya Ali, 21, of Lodi showed up April 2 to take the entrance exam at NVC Police Academy, according to NVC campus Police Chief Ken Arnold.
During the test, Ali excused himself to use the restroom. While he was gone, Melissa Chambers, 26, of Brooklyn, took his place in the classroom and began taking the test, Arnold said.
"Mr. Ali apparently brought her along with him and paid her to take the test for him," he said.
A test proctor noticed a different person was sitting in Ali's seat and notified college police.
Ali and Chambers were arrested.
At first Ali said he had a New York address, Arnold said. But investigators learned his true address was Washington Street in Lodi.
That location is near the residence of Hamid Hayat, 22, who -- along with his father, Umer Hayat, 47 -- has been charged with lying to federal investigators about attending a terrorist camp in 2003 and 2004.
The FBI isn't saying just how the men came to their attention, how far the connections extend and exactly what kind of attacks -- if any -- they were plotting.
John Cauthen, FBI spokesman, told the Register on Friday he had not been notified about the Napa incident.
"When we get specific leads, we don't get back to the reporting party," Cauthen said. "But I can tell you that we follow every lead we get. No stone goes unturned. We don't make statements to the media about the investigation."
Cauthen said the federal probe "has been going on for several years."
Said NVC's Arnold: "It is odd that a Lodi address came out at the same time this terrorist information is coming out. We turned this information over to the FBI. But we don't know if there is any direct connection."
Booked for conspiracy
After the incident with the police exam, Ali and Chambers were arrested on suspicion of felony conspiracy. Chambers was also booked on a felony forgery charge.
College police forwarded the cases to the Napa County District Attorney's Office, requesting criminal complaints be filed.
Prosecutors asked NVC police for additional information, Napa County Chief Deputy District Attorney Mark Boessenecker said Friday. "We are expecting to file charges soon."
The district attorney typically has 48 hours, or until the next available court day, to file a complaint before releasing an arrestee. Since this did not happen in Ali and Chambers' cases, they were released from custody.
If and when charges are filed, arrest warrants will be issued for the pair, Boessenecker said.
Boessenecker said he did not know Ali or Chambers' whereabouts.
During an interview following his arrest, Ali told investigators he was living in New York and was calling around to different police academies, Arnold said. "He said he called Napa Valley Police Academy out of the blue. He said since he had family in Lodi, he picked Napa. We don't know for sure why he picked Napa."
The case in Lodi
Umer Hayat said his son was drawn to jihadist training camps in his early teenage years while attending a madrassah, or religious school, in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, according to an FBI affidavit.
The elder Hayat is alleged to have paid for his son to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. Father and son are charged only with lying to federal investigators.
Meanwhile, differences in copies of the affidavit released in Washington, D.C., and Sacramento raised questions among lawyers for both men.
The early version of the affidavit released in Washington said Hamid Hayat chose to carry out his "jihadi mission" in the United States and that potential targets included "hospitals and large food stores." The reference to the targets was dropped in a later version of the affidavit filed in federal court in Sacramento.
Hamid Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, said that revision "strikes us as an odd turnabout."
Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, said he was irritated that the government made public the references to hospitals and supermarkets, and then filed something different with the court. Griffin also said that whether the men had appropriate legal representation during their interrogations "may very well be an issue down the road."
Cauthen described the changes in the affidavits as routine. Authorities said they had no indication of specific plans or timetables for an attack.
"There is no specific information about hospitals and food stores," he said. "They didn't stand out above other sectors of the infrastructure."
The investigation also led to the detention on immigration complaints of two Islamic religious leaders, or imams, and one leader's son. Neither Cauthen nor a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would reveal specifics of the alleged visa violations.
One of the imams, Mohammad Adil Khan, is scheduled for a July 1 hearing in San Francisco on three administrative charges: being inadmissible at the time of entry, violating the status or condition of his entry and fraud or misrepresentation.
According to the Sacramento Bee, Khan's son, Mohammad Hassan Adil, is scheduled to appear in immigration court in San Francisco July 29. The other imam, Shabbir Ahmed, is scheduled for a June 24 immigration hearing.
Cauthen said the Lodi investigation was not triggered by an internal rift within Lodi's Pakistani community, as some members of the community had suggested.
The Hayats and the imams are on opposite sides of a struggle between Pakistani factions in and around Lodi: The Hayats are aligned with a faction supporting more traditional Islamic values; the imams with another group seeking greater cooperation and understanding from the larger community. There are about 2,500 Pakistanis, some with family roots in Lodi stretching back decades, in the agricultural region about 30 miles south of Sacramento.
Adil Khan was trying to start an Islamic center but has been sued by the Lodi Muslim Mosque, which claims he improperly transferred mosque property.
"It may well be that some of this is gamesmanship," said attorney Gary Nelson, who represents Khan in the civil lawsuit. "But we are talking about the FBI and INS, and they don't do this lightly. At least I hope they don't."
Cauthen wouldn't say what triggered the terrorism probe. FBI officials have said they are investigating numerous people in the Lodi area who may have connections to al-Qaida and who received training abroad.
The link to Lodi isn't surprising, said Nick Boone, who retired from the FBI in Los Angeles in 2000 after spending most of his 31 years fighting terrorism.
"I found numerous, numerous connections to that area," as did other agents, Boone said. "That entire region, all of the area around there, became a very big area of Arab settlement," with accompanying connections to Islamic regions overseas.
The sequence that led to the arrests and detentions began May 29, when Hamid Hayat was trying to return to the U.S. but was identified in mid-flight as being on the federal "no-fly" list. His plane was diverted to Japan, where Hayat was interviewed by the FBI and denied any connection to terrorism.
He was allowed to fly to California, but was interviewed again last weekend. He and his father were charged after he flunked a lie detector test and then admitted attending the training camp, the affidavit said.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
This is really scary.
One can only imagine the damage that an Islamofascist Jihadist could do as a police officer.
Scary, i wish the Libs would get with reality and let us do racial profiling, this is obviously middle easterns(bad ones) against the United States. Forget PC, PC is what is going to ruin us.
I have a very short response to these libs who want to protect those who would kill our families and us.
I tell them that any left winger who abetted any Islamofascist that harms my family will pay.
Horrors! Another persecuted Muslim! Call James Zogby and Jerry Nadler.
He substituted a woman for himself??? Yah, I'll bet the proctor had an inkling something had changed!!! Let us pray that all terrorists are this inept. I wonder if she was in a burka?
What's really scarey is that they chose to let them go, and now haven't a clue where they are.
I agree with you GrampaDave!
There are already lots of muslims in police forces, in the U.S.
How many got by the test and are now moles in our law enforcement structure?
My wife laughed when she read that a woman was the Islamo's substitute.
Neither are people working in the public sector.
So a guy ducks out and a woman takes his place. They thought that no one would notice? What a bunch a morons. That being said, these two obviously aren't up to any good.
If I were the journalist writing this article, I would have found out what the graduation rate of the NVC police academy was. If he cheated the test, would he have just wasshed out of a competitive program, or would he have coasted through into law enforcement? I'd also try to find out if he was trying to get extra points for being a woman. :-)
Napa Valley (community) College Police?
These guys are really sharp. Comforting to know that internal security is in such competent hands.
I don't like this one bit. If they infiltrate our police, I will have no choice but to say I can trust no muslim.
Reminds me of another government job test scandal...
Actually. the woman who wrote this article is the only real investigative journalist this little chain of newspapers has.
She po's a lot of people, but she does real investigative reporting.
The academy seems to be well respected by the law enforcement communities in N California in spite of being hosted by a uber liberal community college.
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