Freeper Research on Anthrax Perps - Updated 9/17/01

Various FR Posters | 9/17/01 | Various FR Posters

[Alamo-Girl]

The affirmative statements in the following profile are meant to convey that the majority view on the threads are thus and so. The conditional words, such as may be or in the alternative ... are used to convey alternative views where there is not an overwhelming consensus from prior posts. At the end are the significant competing theories presented so far.

This is not meant to obtain an indictment or plead a case before a jury ... it is to show the consensus additional profile information based on research done by many contributing Freepers.

Consensus Profile of the Anthrax Perp:

The perp is here on a student VISA. He is Islamic and Middle Eastern. He may be a member of Al Queda. English is not his primary language, he may be a proficient computer user or coder especially if Al Queda.

The downward slant from left to right in the anthrax letters has been debated at length. If you regularly write from right to left your hand would be trained to maintain a horizontal line. But, if you attempt to write from left to right and it is not your first language than you may have a downward slant from left to right. Try this yourself. Take a pen and paper and begin writing from right to left. We have done it and found that as natural left to right writers we automatically follow a radius instead of horizontal line when writing right to left, ending up with a right to left downward slant. The anthrax letter writer's first language is not one that is written from left to right.

The alternative theory is that the perp is left handed.

The 'G' and '6' as handwritten on the letters and envelopes are peculiar and perhaps indicate an arabic cursive normal usage.

He was given anthrax and perhaps more biochems – of various grades. They may have been made in Iraq – they may have been made here. He did not develop them himself. He knows lab procedures.

The alternative theory is that the terrorist cell had one and only one vial of the anthrax and they were rushed to use it for some reason, it could be that the very fine stuff settles to the bottom of the vial. The lab analysis of each specimen will eventually show if the only difference between envelopes is size of the spores - or if the batches were processed differently.

He is fairly diligent in handling the anthrax, but he is not perfect. He knows Dr. Malik, chairman of the Islamic Society of NJ. He may work with him. He’s been to the doctor’s office at 1542 Kuser Road in Trenton NJ. While there he accidentally infected the accountant next door at Civale Silvestri & Alfieri CPA, 1540 Kuser Road.

The perp may be from Pakistan and may have sought out Dr. Malik’s help (because he is also from Pakistan) to get employment/access to a nearby university hospital, Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital at Hamilton. Dr Malik is on the staff there. The perp may have used lab facilities in the hospital (either at Hamilton or the main campus or one of its affiliates) to safely handle or prep the different batches of anthrax.

Dr. Malik has been in the U.S. since the 70's or so and is long established here. He is probably not a party to the terrorists. However, as head of the Islamic Center of Central NJ and being from Pakistan and having made it as a doctor here ... we wonder if a newcomer to the country living in that area, attending that mosque and wanting to become a doctor ... may have asked him for a job referral or such.

There probably are other people in his cell who may already be in custody - one with Florida license plates and others from Canada.

Several arrests of Pakistani nationals were made in Trenton/Hamilton two weeks ago --some in the Greenwood Village apartments, and some at 1001 N. Olden Street. The N. Olden Street arrests took place after a witness observed a man gingerly placing letters enclosed in a ziploc bag into his car. The car had Florida license plates.

Just after the events of September 11, the FBI arrested Mohammed Pervez, a naturalized U.S. citizen of Pakistani descent. Pervez was a Jersey City roommate of Ali Ayub Kahn and Mohammed Jazweeth Azmath, suspected of being hijackers whose plans were thwarted when their plane was grounded in St. Louis. Pervez, who worked in both Trenton and Newark train stations, was also a roommate of the potential anthrax suspects detained from the Greenwood village apartments in Hamilton.

Ali Ayub Khan also listed as one of his addresses the same Chicago apartment house as Sabash Gurung is staying in with his brother. Gurung is the Nepalese who was arrested at O'Hare Airport with a large stash of weapons (knives, a stun gun, etc.). The FBI said (or implied) that the Ali Khan who lives in the same apartment house as Gurung is a different Ali Khan, that it's a coincidence of names. But this seems not to be the case -- in fact, there is a newspaper article on Khan, dated well before Gurung was in the news, which gives that Chicago address for him.

There may be a chain of infection following the medical route – like there is following the mail route.

In DelRay Beach, Florida – a pharmacist (Gregg Chatterton at Huber Healthmart Drugs) claimed to have talked to Atta and another hijacker when they came into his pharmacy with ailments last August. Mostly, we heard about Atta, who had red hands. But the other hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehhi, had symptoms of inhalation anthrax (cough) that would have required him to visit a doctor in his area. The pharmacist said that a man resembling Al-Shehhi had returned to have a prescription filled, but his name was not found in their records – leading the investigators to think he had used an alias. The pharmacist said the red hands looked like a result from washing with bleach – that it did not look like cutaneous anthrax.

In Chester PA on 11/14/01 - teams of FBI agents complete with hazmat gear and tents, broke down door(s), swabbed and seized evidence at two homes and the city hall. One house was shared by City Health Commissioner Irshad Shaikh and his brother Masood. The other was the home of city accountant Asif Kazi. They are all from Pakistan. Kazi’s wife had a prescription for Cipro. Kazi had been seen dumping a cloudy liquid and handing a silver canister to someone.

Freepers wonder if this Could he be THE Asif Kazi, or is it a very common Pakistani name?

Asif Kazi (or Qazi or Khazi) is a very common last name. It means "judge" and is the designation for lots of low-level functionaries - like the English surnames "Judge" or "Cooper" or "Fletcher", it's just a last name based on a profession.

However, the dialogue on the discussion thread is troubling:

It has a single entry under "replies". If you click it, you see a reply consisting of the original message quoted with carets, and no new text. It seems most each reply is the same, with "mustafa's" original message quoted, but no new content. One reply had the same message "mustafa" entered, but this time not quoted (no carets, it appeared to be original content), and signed by "Bharathi Kumar". (BTW almost all the names seemed to be middle-eastern types.) The next message -- a reply to "Bharathi Kumar" -- (this one by a poster named "bluess") quoted the original message, again attributing it to "mustafa".

The next message after that one again had the text in quoted format, but attributed it to ">ASHISH BHARDWAJ" -- which happens to be the same name shown as the author of the post, although the Author: field showed it in lowercase. The reply to that message had "mustafa's" message, but this time once again formatted as caretless original text, and, missing the linebreaks that the previous messages had. It was signed by "Venkat", and the Author: field showed VENKAT in uppercase.

Conjecture, for discussion:

1. It could be a series of coded messages, with the "message" part being the email address, or the author name, or perhaps there's some subtle changes in the body of the text (an extra space here or there, etc.)

2. It could be a "recruiting station", with volunteers directed to post a followup message to that thread, so that they could be contacted via email. Why do something like that? So that the "recruiter" could see who "applies" without disclosing his own identity. The contributing Freeper has heard that "no footprint" communications like that happen on Usenet; and believes there's a newsgroup dedicated to such comms. There is no way for an observer to know who the recipient is, because the message is readable to the entire world, even though only the intended recipient will know how to decipher it.

Dr. Shaikh PhD. has been the Commissioner of Health since 1994. He received his undergrad and postgraduate diplomas in Community Medicine in Pakistan. He received his Masters and PhD in Public Health from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is fellow of the Public Health Leadership Institute (PHLI). PHLI is an executive leadership program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the University of California at Berkeley. Dr. Shaikh also holds a faculty appointment at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

Welcome to the Johns Hopkins University Center for Civilian Biodefense Studies"...Sponsored by The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation & The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation..."

The Hopkins School of Hygiene and public health is across the street from the hospital. They do not have any labs for microbes there. They have no anthrax and neither does the hospital. This guy may be on the faculty at the School of Hygiene but there is certainly no institutional support for terrorist activites. The former Dean of that school, Henderson, was the one who wiped out smallpox. It is a great school except for some departments that seem to attract all kinds of socialists, communists, etc. The Robert Wood Johnson foundation endows all kinds of activities including wings at Hopkins for peds. The former head of a department at Hopkins headed the RWJ foundation. They probably do not provide cover for terrorists either.

Tests are now being performed for Dr. Gerald Weisfogel who believes he may have had skin anthrax earlier than the mailings. There are three Gerald M. Weisfogel's listed in NJ - Franklin Park, Kendall Park and Metuchen. Dr. Gerald Weisfogel is chief of cardiology at the JFK Medical Center in New Jersey, which is in Edison, New Jersey. Edison is just across the river from New Brunswick.

Good Morning America (7:00 AM ET) – ABC November 12, 2001 Monday

…ROSS: (VO) Dr. Weisfogel says he diagnosed his black scab as a spider bite and now wonders if this is the same common misdiagnosis in other anthrax cases. What's more, he wonders if the bioterrorists might have been in his office.

Dr. WEISFOGEL: Have I come across patients from countries who might be doing this? Yes.

ROSS: You've treated people like that?

Dr. WEISFOGEL: Yes.

ROSS: In this time frame?

Dr. WEISFOGEL: Yes. But there's no proof that any of them have had any connection…

Kendall Park, Franklin Park, Edison, and Metuchen are all close to each other, going north on Rte. 1. So all the addresses are probably for the same guy: hospital in Edison, offices in Metuchen and either or Franklin Park or Kendall Park, and home in the fourth place

There are significant labs in Piscataway, across the river from New Brunswick, the main campus of RWJ. Robert Wood Johnson has two high-profile microbiology labs in Piscataway -- the CABM(Center forAdvanced Biotechnology and Medicine) and the Waksman Institute. The Waksman Institute is a "microbe farm," producing germ "products" for industry and research.

The Waksman fermentation facility is troubling, and contributing Freepers hope the FBI has included ALL reference labs that have fermentation specialties. Most solid state fermentation is done with fungal spores, but the same technique would apply to bacterial (anthrax) spores.

Metuchen is right up the road to the northeast. (And down the road about 12 miles along Route 1 is the Islamic Society and Franklin Park.)

The perp accidentally infected the lady in New York. He did not go there by subway – he drove in. He may have gone to New York to pick up or deliver the anthrax. The car he used is most likely still contaminated. He may have rolled down a window or opened a door at just the wrong time for Kathy. The perp, may be working for RWJ University Hospital and had a business contact with Kathy’s hospital.

A possible suspect in the Anthrax mailings is an Iraqi-American microbiologist who lives in Trenton, New Jersey (at last notice.) His name, or at least his alias, is "Waly Samar". In 1993, Mr. Samar was studying microbiology at Hunter College in NYC - less than a thousand feet from the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital where Kathy Nguyen worked - the latest victim of inhalation Anthrax. Waly Samar operated integrally with the Iraqi intelligence agents Abdul Rahman Yasin and Ramzi Yousef in planning, coordinating and executing the World Trade Center bombing on February 26th, 1993, the second anniversary of Kuwait's liberation from Iraqi occupation.

The perp is a member or attendee of The Islamic Society of Central Jersey. He has written many letters to them; he knows the zip code by heart. Although he gave a different town name on the return address (Franklin Park) – he automatically used the zip code he knew for that area. But the zip code does not go with Franklin Park.

The zip code on the return address from the Daschle letter is 08852, Monmouth Junction NJ – the location of the Islamic Society of Central NJ – headed by Dr. Malik, and including a mosque and a school.

There are probably canceled checks or correspondence at the Islamic Society of NJ that can be matched to his handwriting.

He is a member of Islamic student associations. He may have attended or be in association with a student at ETSU which is near an elementary school named "Greendale" in Abingdon, VA (a tri-state area.) He didn’t grab that name out of the air – neither brook nor dale would be common words to him.

In the alternative, he might have intentionally changed the name of a nearby school "Greenbrook" to "Greendale." The Greenbrook school only goes to the 4^th grade.

Another possibility: Greendale and Franklin, WI are right next to each other. The NJ school is Greenbrook School, not Greendale. Could it be some Freudian slip? There are 15,000 Muslims in the area.

The block lettering may indicate that he is a tutor for elementary level students or has (or is undertaking) an engineering or architecture education.

The emphasis on the letters might have been intentional – pointing to ATTA.

If he is Al Queda, he may present himself secular – going to bars, joining clubs, protesting the terrorists, etc.

He may be dead or missing.

Medical anthrax trail - there should also be a star for New Brunswick!

US

Competing theories offered by contributing Freepers:

The perp is North Korean or possibly from China. English is not his primary language and neither is Arabic.

In the alternative, he is an operative for Cuba. Castro had a mole deep in the Department of Defense for years and has become close to Islamic fundamentalists. Cuba has advanced biochemical capabilities.

In the alternative, he is a white disgruntled American crackpot, keeping in mind all the anarchist websites and crackpot groups in this country.

Disturbing anti-NY Press rapper website that uses the term penacilin

In the alternative, it is an Arabic ME guy who has been here a long time and who is not happy with his career, someone not directly connected to the 9-11 events.

In the alternative, he is an anti-Arab who is pretending to be an Arab.

In the alternative, the perp is has some connection with BioPort, which manufactures the anthrax vaccine. The biography of the Faud El-Hibri:

Chairman and CEO of BioPort, Mr. El-Hibri was born in Germany in 1958 and is an American citizen… Mr. El-Hibri has participated in the management of a number of international biologics and telecommunications organizations since 1989. Prior to leading the BioPort privatization, he organized and directed the management buyout of Porton Products Ltd. (Porton), a mid-sized biotechnology company in the U.K… During his association with Porton, Mr. El-Hibri was instrumental in marketing and distributing substantial quantities of two types of bio-defense in the early nineties... Among recent accomplishments, he developed and co-managed as a principal, the implementation of the first digital cellular operating network in Moscow, Russia... It was with the support of East West Resources Corporation (EWR), a consulting and business development company which Mr. El-Hibri founded in Washington, D.C. in 1990, that he developed and managed the aforementioned projects and companies, among others, in the pharmaceutical and telecommunication industries. Prior to founding his own company, Mr. El-Hibri helped establish regional offices in Singapore and Sydney for Booz-Allen & Hamilton. As a Senior Associate and resident project manager, Mr. El-Hibri led consulting projects in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Sydney, and Wellington. Before joining Booz-Allen, he was a manager of Citicorp in New York (Mergers and Acquisitions) and in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (Operations and Credit)….”

The perp may not be Al Queda. Osama bin Laden seems to go for the Wal-Mart versions of WMDs (ricin, etc.)

The sender does not appear to be an American. The date is written 09-11-01. Americans would have written 9/11/01, without the leading 0, and with slashes instead of dashes.

A telegrapher [commercial or railroad] or military communicator would have used the zero, but those trained since the 1970s routinely add a slash to the zero to differentiate it from the letter *O*. A European would follow the month/day/format of 11.09.01 and the similar US military format would routinely abbreviate the month to eliminate the confusion: 11 SEP 2001. Some computer-world oriented procedures also follow the logical day/month/year format, though since the Y2K panic, the year is most commonly written with all four digits.

Much has been made of the fact that the date is written in the American order of month-day-year, but most foreigners would be aware of that and, in fact, would have become accustomed to that order after a few years here -- they'd be repeatedly told by Americans that they were writing dates incorrectly if they used the day-month-year order. But nobody misunderstands a date written with dashes instead of slashes; nobody even comments on such a thing, so a foreigner could easily not realize that it looks foreign.

Note though that telegraphers [and some amateur radio operators] also sometimes send the quicker *dash* character [*----* in international Morse] rather than *slash* [-**-*] [or *stroke* in Brit/Euro parlance] and thereby routinely write that char as the seperator. And at least some air traffic controllers will use dashes, rather than slash/stroke.

ATTC sold the anthrax to Iraq.

The anthrax strain kept in Ames, Iowa is called 'Ames' though that is not exactly correct. It is a strain of the Ames group, 1 of 7 groups that exist for type A anthrax. Another group used by countries for weapons production is Vollum. Ames originates in the Middle East primarily. All type A anthrax eventually originates in Africa. The Ames substrain was found in Iowa 50 years ago and widely disseminated to many researchers. It is in fact the standard for vaccine testing worldwide.

In the alternative, the anthrax came from the former Soviet Union.

If the perp loaded the envelopes in a house or apartment, there should be some spilled or leaked anthrax that should infect other people in the vicinity sooner or later. But if he loaded the envelopes in a special science lab, there might not be any spilled anthrax at all.

The perp would require either specialized equipment purpose-designed for biological engineering and efficient chemical processing, or some really clever adaptations of off-the-shelf equipment for such uses- in which case he's also an accomplished machinist, or has a really talented and well-equipped one at his disposal.

And such equipment can't be had just anywhere. Neither are purchases for such equipment generally made with more or less untracable cash, so there'd likely be a paper trail back to the financial sources behind such an effort- in which case it wouldn't be *just one lone crazed gunman labman*.

KNF Neuberger, Inc. markets the necessary laboratory equipment. They are at Two Black Forest Road in Trenton NJ which is located very close to the Kuser Road, where the accountant was infected.

[archy]

Note also that the Rhodesian [now Zimbabwe] Anthrax outbreak which resulted in some 10K fatalities from 1978-80, as described in Dr. Meryl Nass's report, occurred in the same approximate timeframe as that of the April 1979 Soviet *laboratory accident* at Sverdlovsk [now Ekaterinburg] which reportedly affected 94 people and killed at least 64 of them. The limited scope of the Soviet outbreak in which the first victim died after four days with the last one dying six weeks later also appears more similar to the effects of the US *anthrax mail bombs*, though that may in part be explained by the probability that the intended target in Rhodesia was that country's cattle farmers, with the fatalities a result of ingestion of the meat from fatally diseased cattle.

[archy]

It's also possible that the Soviets had developed a vaccine specific to their weapons-grade strain or had determined an antibiotic regime efficient in limiting the scope of their problem

-archy-/-

[daves_brother]

The letter is probably a bogus copycat letter...

I agree. From the look of the envelope and the tone of the letter, it certainly does look like a copycat. It raises a question though: Could a copycat (any copycat) also have anthrax spores and prepare a second wave of anthrax letters?

Good find! Does anyone know of any photos on the web of other copycats/hoaxes? (The ones available on Yahoo of the photos released by the Justice Department are all I've seen.)

[Mitchell]

Does anyone know of any photos on the web of other copycats/hoaxes?

I haven't seen any others. Has anybody seen any photos of the Leahy letter or envelope?

[Alamo-Girl]

We've been researching like crazy the "why Leahy-Daschle-Brokaw and not Kennedy-CNN" etc. questions.

We're still looking, but I just wanted to throw this out for the discussion: Leahy and Daschle are strongly in favor of an International Criminal Court. Some NBC editorials I've found also lean in favor.

I haven't been looking for leads on the Florida anthrax because we don't have the envelope and therefore don't know the intended recipient. Plus, they ran a nasty article about Osama as I recall...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the information!!!

[archy]

You're welcome. And btw, the FBI *Anthrax letters* photos can be seen *here*

[Alamo-Girl]

Here's a new thread!!!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the letter image and link!!!

[aristeides]

There's no telling whether that's the Brokaw or the NY Post letter, because they're identical, aren't they?

I wonder if it will turn out that the Leahy letter is identical to the Daschle letter. If somebody's been using a xerox machine, I wonder if it would be possible to identify it from the scratches in the copies. If the machine is in the Trenton area, it should be possible to identify it.

[Alamo-Girl]

Hmmm ... or maybe it was copied on a cheap "film" copier/fax machine ... the kind that might leave an image on the used portion!

[NCEaglette]

Bump for your excellent research!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so very much for the kudos and the bump!!!

[zeaal]

To the competing theory ...

BioPort’s Board of Directors

Fuad El-Hibri (Chairman and CEO)
Robert G. Kramer (President & COO)
Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. (USN Retired)
Dr. Robert C. Myers (Executive Vice-President, CSO)

For your consideration.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the additional information!!!

[maestro]

Sounds like it's FOREIGN International Agent-Provocatuers..........
.......... with Al-Qaida ties ($$$$-investments/stocks/etc.) to MANY International Pharmaceutical Companies!!??
(a win win situation)
IMHO

[Alamo-Girl]

That would fit well into the BioPort scenario profile! Thank you so much for your post!!!

[rwfromkansas]

whewww

[gumbo]

Great job (as usual)! You've compiled a lot of information, including much I hadn't seen yet -- and I try to read ALL anthrax-related articles. Thanks for all your work!

[MizSterious]

Did I read that article wrong? What I understood from it is that this was the hoax letter to the NY Times--which, although containing a mysterious powder, was found not to be anthrax. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong on this one.