Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

(Breaking!)INS Detainee Anthrax Suspect (4 Men All Foriegn!! Not "Lone American" Right-Winger!
The Register-Citizen ^ | December 06, 2001 | TRACY KENNEDY

Posted on 12/06/2001 3:31:03 PM PST by t-shirt

INS detainee anthrax suspect

TRACY KENNEDY, Register Citizen Staff December 06, 2001

HARTFORD - A Hartford judge set bail Wednesday for one of four local men detained by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service since Nov. 25 for their suspected involvement in the deadly national anthrax mailings. At Immigration Court, Judge Michael W. Straus ordered Mohammed I. Khan, 46, of Torrington, to pay $12,000 bail during a hearing regarding his application for asylum. Kahn reportedly filed the application after arriving in this country from Pakistan in 1993. According to an INS representative, he had not posted the bail by late afternoon Wednesday.

According to published reports, Khan and three other men, Najmul Hasan, 33, of Winsted, Ifran Ahmed, 36, and Ayazuddin Sheerazi, 32, both of Torrington, were arrested by local police and FBI agents after a tip from Torrington resident Robert Janco.

Janco told authorities and "America's Most Wanted," a nationally syndicated television show, that he believed Kahn and Hasan were involved in the recent anthrax scares. According to published reports, Janco told police he overheard the men talking on Sept. 8 about delivering letters to a Vietnamese immigrant in New York City named "Kathy." When Janco heard of the death of 61-year-old Kathy Nguyen on Oct. 31, he reportedly contacted the police.

According to source at the immigration court, charging documents have not been filed against Kahn or the other men and they are solely being detained on immigration matters.

Gary Cote, acting deputy district director of INS in Boston, would not comment on the investigation or confirm the men were being detained by the immigration agency. "I cannot discuss that or what action is being taken if any action is being taken concerning these men," he said Wednesday. Cote explained his office could not discuss any actions concerning immigrants that may be involved in national terrorist activities pursuant to a directive received from the Attorney General.

However, according to prison records checked on Wednesday, Khan, Ahmed and Hasan are currently incarcerated in Osborn Correctional Institution in Somers, and Sheerazi is being held at Hartford Correctional Center in Hartford.

Court dates have not yet been set for Ahmed and Hasan, and Sheerazi is scheduled to appear at a hearing on Wednesday in the immigration court in Hartford concerning his application to extend his visa.

During Kahn's hearing on Wednesday, Assistant District Council Attorney John Marley indicated he would oppose Kahn's application for asylum based on Kahn's alleged failure to report his residence in Torrington.

Kahn, a native of Pakistan, said that while he works in Torrington, he still maintains his residence on Neptune Street in Brooklyn, N.Y., as indicated on his immigration documents.


TOPICS: Anthrax Scare; Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; US: Connecticut
KEYWORDS: ahmed; anthrax; anthraxscarelist; anthraz; antraz; biowarfare; hasan; hassan; injury; kahn; khan; rumormill; sheerazi
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 181-195 next last
To: John H K
One of the strongest reasons for not believing the Nairobi letter had anthrax is that it was mailed before Sept. 11th. This story, if true, eliminates that argument.

I admit that it is more likely than not that the Nairobi letter contained no anthrax. But I do not believe it is impossible.

Among other things, one can certainly imagine a reason why the Islamofascists would have sent anthrax to a doctor in Nairobi. 9/11 happened the day before 9/12, when the defendants were scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Lower Manhattan for the bombings of our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya -- Nairobi, Kenya.

Anyway, you're throwing cold water not only on my reminding people of the Nairobi letter (which I quite deliberately refrained from calling an "anthrax letter,") but also on any possible connection between these four guys in CT and the anthrax. On that at least, your air of certainty strikes me as inappropriate.

101 posted on 12/06/2001 5:49:50 PM PST by aristeides
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 100 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
You sound like a Postoffice guy to me ???
102 posted on 12/06/2001 5:54:17 PM PST by tbird1
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 72 | View Replies]

Comment #103 Removed by Moderator

To: ZDaphne
It would be like trying to herd snakes at this point to get them out.

Well then, we will just have to use the snake charmer then, wont we.

104 posted on 12/06/2001 6:34:17 PM PST by Joe Hadenuf
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 99 | View Replies]

To: t-shirt; BlueDogDemo; roughrider; Secret Squid; Nancie Drew; Wallaby; Uncle Bill; golitely...
Wali Khan, a Pakistani,was Bin Ladens top lieutenant who helped set up Abu Sayeff(ALQaeda) in the Phillipines. He and Edwin Angeles met with Terry Nichols in the Phillipines in 1994 probably to help do the OKC bombing. Mohammed Khan could be related to Wali Khan who is in FBI custody. Even if not, it is likely that Mohammed name is Khan since that is the spelling common to Pakistan and Afghanistan.

I will try and check on the Mohammed Khan connection to Wali Khan. Also their is a strong Iraqi connection to the AlQaeda and Abu Sayeff groups in the Phillipines. And McVeigh met with Iraqi recruiters and intel agents in Las Vegas with Nichols and also in OKC.

105 posted on 12/06/2001 6:38:00 PM PST by OKCSubmariner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: habs4ever
Must not have much evidence.
106 posted on 12/06/2001 6:38:10 PM PST by DB
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: t-shirt
Let me help you with this. If there were any real evidence that these guys were involved with antrax, the bail would not have been set at $12,000. There would have been no bail. So this is all as phony as a 3 dollar bill.
107 posted on 12/06/2001 6:40:35 PM PST by Torie
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RedDragonRising
Another astronomical coincidence is the fact that Jackson Stephens has an office right next door to the airport in Florida Atta trained at...
That is just proximity, not involvement. The hijackers were all over the place, so they will have been near a lot of interesting people. Not that Jackson Stephens is not a very strange dude. Still, I don't see why he might have been mixed up in this.

I find the Dutch guys who had no aviation experience who recently bought the flight schools to be a lot more of an odd coincidence. It's possible those businesses changed hands by coincidence, but I would be looking for al-Quaida having funded the purchase so they could have an ask-no-questions place to train. There must be some reason why the hijackers choose that particular flight school.

108 posted on 12/06/2001 6:48:04 PM PST by eno_
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 74 | View Replies]

Comment #109 Removed by Moderator

Comment #110 Removed by Moderator

To: vannrox
He was offered Bail? WHY in the World was he offered bail? For all we know, he has the keys to detonate a nuclear weapon... There is a greater chance of him causing more havoic than there is for him to stay home and watch TV.

They should lock him up and throw away the key!

111 posted on 12/06/2001 6:55:20 PM PST by KLT
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: t-shirt
Well, I emailed the editor of the Register-Citizen with a variety of the questions I've already raised in this thread.

The author of this story, it is important to note, didn't actually TALK to this Janco fellow; EVERYTHING of importance is based on "published reports" that go un-named. If there was a published report that IS the original source, even if it is "Nepalese Yak-herding Weekly", you can be sure it would have been posted on FR already.

112 posted on 12/06/2001 6:56:05 PM PST by John H K
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: golitely
Is this why Clinton turned down help to get Osama back before 9/11? Was he getting money from Osama or his family? Clinton friends getting money? Anyone know?

There's plenty to link the Clintons to, starting with: Hillary Accepts Contributions from Boston Area Muslim Terrorist Supporters, and then there's this little tidbit from the NY Post's "Page 6": "...the Holy Land Foundation, under investigation since 1993, may have been able to keep raising money for terrorism before its assets were frozen this week because it was repped by the best-connected law firm in Washington, Vernon Jordan's Akin Gump."

18 posted on 12/6/01 4:48 PM Pacific by golitely

113 posted on 12/06/2001 6:58:58 PM PST by GOPJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: t-shirt
There is NO WAY that this man lives in Brooklyn, and commutes daily to Torrington !
114 posted on 12/06/2001 6:59:11 PM PST by nopardons
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

The article in this thread was published December 6th.  This one was published a week earlier and tells a different story. 


Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.

THE HARTFORD COURANT
November 30, 2001
MAIN; Pg. A1

TALE OF A TIP ON TERROR; FOUR ARRESTS, BUT QUESTIONS LINGER
By DAVE ALTIMARI And DAVID OWENS

It was a tip that frustrated anthrax investigators could no longer ignore.

A man had told police that on Sept. 8 he overheard two "Arab" men in a Torrington bar talking about going to New York to bring letters to "Kathy," a Vietnamese woman who would then deliver them.

The man, a Torrington resident, told police his story early this month, just days after a Vietnamese immigrant named Kathy Nguyen died mysteriously of inhalation anthrax in a New York City hospital.

Upon checking, federal investigators learned that Mohammad I. Khan, one of the men allegedly overheard in the bar, has ties to a radical Pakistani group, and that the other, Najmul Hasan, was ordered deported in 1994 but never left.  On Sunday, agents from the FBI and the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service swarmed their apartments. Agents in biohazard suits removed chemistry books and computers and asked questions about anthrax.

Was it finally the longed-for break in the nation's highest-profile criminal case?

Probably not.

This week, the man who told police the original tale flunked a polygraph test, according to a source familiar with the investigation, raising questions about his whole story. Meanwhile, Ayazuddin Sheerazi, 32, Irfan Ahmed, 36, and Khan, 46, all of Torrington, and Hasan, 33, of Winsted, remain detained in a Hartford jail as part of the nationwide investigation resulting from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"[Khan] was amazed that they were taking his roommates' high school chemistry books," said Michael Moore, a Springfield attorney who is representing the four. Three are Pakistani and one is Indian.

"He couldn't understand why there were people in hazardous material suits asking him questions about anthrax," Moore said.

For investigators who apparently had dismissed the story earlier as far-fetched, the anthrax death of 94-year-old Ottilie Lundgren in Oxford made it difficult not to pursue a potential lead only 35 miles away. FBI officials would not comment Thursday.

Authorities first learned of the story concerning Khan and Hasan when Robert Janco went to police on Nov. 5 to tell them he believed Khan and Hasan were terrorists.

Janco told an elaborate story of meeting the two men in a bar on Sept. 8. He told police that Hasan seemed nervous and jumpy, and that Khan, who told people his name was Mike, tried to calm him down, saying things such as "what is up with you," and "if you get yourself in trouble, I can't get you out of it."

Hasan then talked about having to go to New York City to meet a Vietnamese woman, Janco told police. Khan joked that Hasan was dating the woman, and Hasan reportedly replied that the woman was between 50 and 60, worked at a small hospital, and "does things like mail letters for me."

Hasan intimated that he had to go see the woman, named Kathy, because he had some letters for her to mail that week, Janco told police. Hasan and Khan left the bar after playing pool for a few hours and Janco never saw them again.

After learning of the Oct. 31 death of Nguyen, 61, who lived in New York and worked at a small hospital, Janco went to Torrington police with his tale.

The information was passed on to the FBI. Janco, apparently dissatisfied with the FBI response to his story, eventually called the television show "America's Most Wanted," which contacted local FBI officials.

On Sunday night, a cadre of FBI and INS officials, and police from Torrington and Winsted, arrested the four men. They removed chemistry books from Khan's house, and also seized his computer, Moore said.

Within days of their detention, Janco, 35, failed a voluntary polygraph test, according to a source. He declined to talk about his statement during a brief phone interview earlier this week.

"No one is supposed to know about this," Janco said. "I can't talk about it. Call the FBI and ask them what's going on."

All four detained men have potential immigration problems that could keep them locked up or result in their deportation now that they have been arrested.

Khan is a member of the radical Muttahida Qami Movement (MQM) based in Pakistan, Moore said. The MQM claims that the current Pakistani government is engaged in "state-sponsored terrorism" against Urdu-speaking people, the MQM's ethnic group.

Khan came to the United States in 1993 and has been seeking political asylum ever since. He was finally supposed to have a hearing in U.S. District Court in New York on Dec. 10, but that likely won't happen now, Moore said. On Wednesday, Khan was arraigned in secret in immigration court in Hartford.

He is being held under the new laws that allow the government to detain terrorism suspects indefinitely. None of the others have been arraigned yet because the government is preparing charging documents against them, Moore said. All four are being held at the Hartford Correctional Center.

Hasan has a deportation order from 1994, but never left. He previously lived in College Station, Texas, the home of Texas A&M, one of the largest agricultural colleges in the country. Hasan married a U.S. citizen and tried to get his status changed without success, Moore said.

Ahmed entered the country on a false passport and eventually married a U.S. citizen, Moore said. He paid a $1,000 fine on the passport issue, but has been denied permanent citizenship.

Sheerazi is from India and was arrested as he tended the counter at his uncle's Coastal gas station/convenience store in Torrington, Moore said. Sheerazi's aunt, Hina Sheerazi, said he was in the United States on business and his visa expired. He applied for an extension and has a hearing scheduled for Dec. 27, she said.

Hina Sheerazi said her nephew is in the Oriental carpet business and was in the United States taking orders for a factory in India. He wanted to remain in the United States through the end of January, she said, but has not traveled since the Sept. 11 attacks because he's waiting for his visa to be extended. He arrived in the U.S. May 1 with a three-month visa.

Sheerazi applied for the extension before the visa expired and should be permitted to remain in the U.S. as he awaits a decision from the INS, Moore said. When Sheerazi was taken away, he was baby-sitting his two young cousins. His aunt and uncle arrived back at the store to find them in tears.

"The last three days have been very hard on us," Hina Sheerazi said. "My kids are so fearful, they're not going to school."

She said her nephew has no link to terrorists or terrorist organizations.

"He's a simple guy," she said. "He's taking orders for carpets."

Hina Sheerazi said having a family member dragged away in handcuffs is so embarrassing that she has not yet told his relatives in India.

"He's such a reputable person in India," she said. "A person from our family has been arrested, handcuffed. It's so embarrassing for us."

Hina Sheerazi said she doesn't know any of the other men arrested Sunday.


115 posted on 12/06/2001 7:00:34 PM PST by Nita Nupress
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 111 | View Replies]

To: KirbyJ
Has anyone checked Kathy Nguyen's handwriting, or should I say, printing? Could that be a link?
116 posted on 12/06/2001 7:01:42 PM PST by GOPJ
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 109 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah
makes sense to me.
117 posted on 12/06/2001 7:23:27 PM PST by thinden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 30 | View Replies]

To: OKCSubmariner
2 & 2
118 posted on 12/06/2001 7:26:58 PM PST by thinden
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 105 | View Replies]

To: aristeides; t-shirt
Thanks for the heads up!!!
119 posted on 12/06/2001 7:29:51 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: Nita Nupress
Nice research on that. You may want to post it on its own as an article.

This Robert Janco's address and phone number are avaliable on the internet, btw, If anyone wants to bother him. I'm not going to.

Seems like a botched story by a cub reporter at the Register-Citizen. Seems like this Janco guy turned out to be some sort of kook...I have little doubt that other aspects of his story besides flunking the polygraph also didn't check out.

120 posted on 12/06/2001 7:34:49 PM PST by John H K
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 115 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 81-100101-120121-140 ... 181-195 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson