Posted on 02/11/2002 10:19:36 PM PST by Shermy
A missing Tennessee driver's license examiner charged with conspiring to provide licenses fraudulently was probably the victim of a "most unusual and suspicious" death, a federal prosecutor said Monday.
Asst. U.S. Atty. Tim Di Scenza also raised the possibility in court that Katherine Smith's five codefendants are involved in terrorism against the United States, citing "connections" to Sept. 11 and the World Trade Center.
A defense attorney, however, protested that the only reason the prosecutor raised the issue of terrorism is that the defendants are from the Middle East.
DiScenza told the court that the same car Smith drove when she was arrested Feb. 5 crashed in Fayette County east of Collierville early Sunday.
Although the gas tank did not explode and the car was only slightly dented from impact with a pole, a fire burned the person inside beyond recognition, FBI agent J. Suzanne Nash testified Monday.
The body had not been identified late Monday, but DiScenza told U.S. Magistrate Judge Diane Vescovo that there was a "great possibility" it was Smith. While authorities have not determined if foul play was involved in Smith's disappearance, Vescovo described the revelations as "upsetting and disturbing."
Nash testified she was called about the wreck at 1 a.m. Sunday. Smith's family told authorities she'd been missing since Saturday night.
Smith was to have appeared Monday for a detention and probable cause hearing in the conspiracy case against her and Khaled Odtllah, 31, of Shelby County; Sakhera Hammad, 24, of New York City, and Mohammed Fares, Mostafa Said Abou-Shahin and Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad, for whom ages and addresses were unavailable.
Smith had been free on bond since Feb. 5. The other five defendants have been detained since their arrest the same day.
The specter of terrorism and Sept. 11 emerged in Monday's hearing when DiScenza asked Nash if documents seized from the suspects had been examined.
She responded that a visitor's pass for the World Trade Center, dated Sept. 5, 2001, was found in Sakhera Hammad's wallet. Hammad told authorities he was a plumber and worked on the center's sprinkler system, Nash said. She also said that Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad and Sakhera Hammad said they were cousins, and worked together in the plumbing business.
Nash also testified that Odtllah drove back from New York City to Memphis on Sept. 11.
But Anthony Helm, attorney for Odtllah, asked Nash, "You certainly don't have any indication any of these fellows is a terrorist, do you?"
"Not at this time, no sir," Nash responded. Helm also argued that Odtllah has many relatives in New York City, suggesting it wouldn't be unusual for him to travel there.
Vescovo continued the hearing until Wednesday for three of the defendants, Abou-Shanin, Abdelmuhsen Mahmid Hammad and Fares, primarily to arrange for an Arabic interpreter. The men told the FBI they are in the country illegally. She went ahead with the hearing for Odtllah and Sakhera Hammad.
Nash testified that Odtllah and Sakhera Hammad led the driver's license scheme. She said Odtllah made the arrangements with his friend Smith, and that Hammad drove the people who bought the fraudulent licenses from New York. She said that Odtllah received $1,000 per license, and that Hammad would receive any amount paid over $1,000.
After two hours of testimony and arguments, Vescovo ordered each man held without bond until their trial. During the hearing, Di Scenza and Nash revealed details of the government's case against the six defendants.
Smith had told authorities after her arrest that Odtllah, who goes by the nickname "Kal," was a friend, and that he had asked her to help him obtain driver's licenses six or seven times before.
Odtllah has lived in Shelby County two and a half years. Until a few months ago, he owned a Phillips 66 gas station. He also buys and sells cars. Nash testified that Smith had said she was buying from Odtllah the champagne-colored 1992 Acura that crashed early Sunday.
Nash testified that Smith had assigned four driver's license numbers in the station's computer system using forms filled out by Odtllah. But only Fares's license showed his correct name. The other three applications contained fictitious and "totally untraceable" names, DiScenza said.
"Those kind of IDs are for further criminal activities," DiScenza said.
Nash said Sakhera Hammad told her he came to Tennessee to get driver's licenses only to help people have identification so they can get jobs.
Sakhera Hammad is from Jordan, but has become a U.S. citizen, said his father, Peter Hansen of New York, who attended the hearing.
Odtllah came to the United States from Jerusalem 13 years ago, Helm said. Nash said Abou-Shahin told authorities he was from Egypt and is a carpenter.
Fares has a Venezuelan passport, but speaks Arabic, DiScenza said.
DiScenza said a key question is whether the alleged license conspiracy had a purpose greater than obtaining driver's licenses so illegal immigrants could find work. Do the circumstances in the case connect the alleged conspiracy to the World Trade Center terrorism, he asked rhetorically.
"Of course not," DiScenza said. "But, you can only have so many coincidences."
Helm argued that the case is not "connected to anything else in the world." He said prosecutors are making the terrorism implications only because the defendants are from the Middle East.
Vescovo said the "completely untraceable" licenses were a great concern to the court. "What further concerns me greatly is that Ms. Smith's vehicle has been burned and a body is inside," she said.
While no testimony Monday links Odtllah or Sakhera Hammad to Smith's disappearance, Vescovo said, "She is connected to the case against them."
- Tom Bailey Jr.: 529-2388
______________
Burned auto casts light on an obscure lifeBy Marc Perrusquia
perrusquia@gomemphis.comShe vanished into the Tennessee night as quietly - and as curiously - as she'd lived her life.
A burned-out automobile is the best clue authorities have on the disappearance of Katherine Smith, who toiled nearly three decades as an obscure state employee before her indictment last week with five Middle Eastern men suspected of possible terrorist links.
Smith, 49, a driver's license examiner at the state testing center on Summer Avenue, was arrested Feb. 5 and charged the next day with federal conspiracy to get Tennessee driver's licenses under false pretenses. Authorities allege she was involved in a scheme to sell licenses for $1,000 apiece.
Smith disappeared Saturday night, and a charred Acura Legend that federal officials said was hers was found early Sunday near the Mississippi state line.
"I knew her face, that's all," said neighbor Walter McGaughy. "I didn't know her name until I saw it on TV." Lt. Zane Smith of the Tennessee Highway Patrol said a badly burned body that authorities believe may be Katherine Smith has not yet been identified.
Lt. Smith said highway patrol investigators believe the car left the roadway about 15 minutes after midnight Sunday, passing through a ditch before striking a utility pole and breaking it.
The car apparently was heading northwest on U.S. 72 in Fayette County about 200 yards north of the Mississippi line when it left the road, he said.
"There's no determination why it left the road," Lt. Smith said. "We're trying to exhaust every angle."
He described the automobile in question only as "a four-door car,'' declining further detail. Fayette County Sheriff Bill Kelley said the car was a 1992 Acura Legend. According to an FBI affidavit, Katherine Smith had a 1992 Acura she was purchasing from one of the Middle Eastern men. Asst. U.S. Atty Tim DiScenza said in court Monday the burned car is the same one Smith had.
"It was burned so bad," Lt. Smith said, any personal effects such as a driver's license, evidently burned with it. {My note: If they were trying to obscure her identity, they would have taken license plates, which were intact.)
"We'd like to know where this individual was coming from and possibly where they were going to," he said. The body was turned over to the medical examiner. Dr. Cynthia Gardner, a forensic pathologist with the Shelby County Medical Examiner's office, said doctors would attempt late Monday to identify the body through dental records.
Personnel records show Smith worked 29 years for state government, the last nine with the driver's license division.
She lived in a small two-bedroom house at 400 Boston in the Beltline neighborhood near the Mid-South Fairgrounds. Property records list Smith and Aaron James Smith II as co-owners of the home.
No one answered calls Monday to Smith's home phone, which is also listed to a Vernola Buchanan.
Since she was traveling northwest and only 200 yards from the border, she was probably coming from Mississippi and heading home. (My Atlas shows 72, but does not show the Beltline neighborhood or the Mid-South Fairgrounds; but we could probably find it on-line somewhere to confirm this.) If she was coming from Mississippi, we may eventually be able to connect some dots.
We know she was getting licenses for illegals, as was the person in Virginia--but nothing happened to him. She was apparently murdered. (It looks to me like parties unknown may have been chasing her and ran her off the road. Despite the lack of damage to the car, she was going fast enough to travel through the ditch and still break the utility pole. She may or may not have been conscious when the assailant(s) started the fire, but we know she was still alive because of the smoke inhalation.) The guy in Virgina was not killed because he could no longer identify anyone or group really important. But she was killed because she could still hurt an ongoing operation.
Honway's info has turned up a possible biological connection. Memphis is on the Mississippi. Couple that with these old posts:
Miss. Probes Crop Duster Sprayings (Rosedale is roughly 100 mi. SW of Memphis)
Sprayed Towboat Relased from Quarantine, EPA holding release of crop duster tests
FBI Looking for Tips on Small Planes (3 Airplanes Appear to Have Dropped Gray Smoke Over Boats)
Of course, her murder could be related to this, too: REPORT: ATTA EYED PLANTS IN TENNESSEE
Just a couple of interesting possibilities ...
Thanks for your work in posting all of these stories. I broadened the category a bit beyond Mrs. Smith because this strikes me as a warning to others in a license fraud organization of some kind. Whether she could have jeoparized an ongoing terror operation, or whether the mob was letting the terrorists know that they wouldn't tolerate them screwing up their nice little setup, I don't know. But somebody was warning somebody. Otherwise, she'd have have died a less spectacular death. Nobody risks getting caught at murder without a good reason.
Information forwarded to the Memphis FBI office...
Dr. Muhammad Shafi
Division of Natural Science, Math, and Computer Science
Lemoyne-Owen College
807 Walker Avenue
Memphis, TN 38126
Tel: 901-942-7391
Fax: 901-942-6245
muhammad_shafi@nile.lemoyne-owen.edu
As far as China's possible involvement, I stand by my #29.
I think you may have posted this on the wrong thread, however, since there was another thread with that quote. In that thread, I think we were discussing the fact that Clinton was out of the country on 9-11, and would soon be out of the country again. Since the coward would never be anywhere near a dangerous encounter, everybody's radar ought to go active when he leaves the country.
That is a fact! Not a point. Gore was in Austria, x42 was in Australia on 9-11.
"William Chhiu, an Australian Chinese businessman who has dealings with Beijing as well as the United States, will pay Clinton's fee,"
The above says it all, Caught "RED HANDED," again.
By Rick Russell
Senior Reporter
February 21, 2002
Federal and local authorities are investigating a man who approached a University of Memphis professor last week seeking information about weapons of mass destruction. The professor, who wished to remain anonymous, said a man of Middle Eastern descent approached him while he was in his office Feb. 13 and asked for a “crash course in the physics that deals with mass destruction.”
In return, the man told the professor he would pay him money for the requested information.
“He told me that money was no object, and that he had plenty of it,” said the professor.
The professor said the bizarre nature of the man’s inquiry and inconsistencies the man gave about his background prompted him to notify Federal authorities while the man sat in his office.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation then informed U of M police, who found the man still sitting in the office when they made the scene.
Bruce Harber, director of public safety at The U of M, said the man was compliant during questioning and supplied officers with a Tennessee driver’s license and a work visa.
However, Harber said the man gave conflicting statements about background information and how he got to the U of M campus.
Police then contacted Immigration Naturalization Service to confirm his background.
INS verified that the information was valid and released the man.
Authorities would only identify the man as a Somalian citizen carrying a visa issued from Nigeria who is currently living in Memphis.
George Bolds, spokesman for the Memphis office of the FBI, said they are currently looking into the incident.
The man is not a student at The U of M.
-30-
Feb 23, 2002
City police spokeswoman Stacie Oulton said Federal Protective Service agents told city officers about the information.
No one answered the phone at the protective service Saturday morning. FBI spokeswoman Ann Atanasio confirmed her agency is investigating the burglary, which occurred Friday, but declined to comment further.
Hoover Dam, about 30 miles east of Las Vegas, Nev., forms the largest man-made reservoir in the nation. It provides water to 23 million people and hydroelectric power for 1.3 million people in Arizona, Nevada and California.
Oulton said a safety engineer's identification badge and computer hard drives were stolen in the burglary. She said the Federal Protective Service asked city officers to examine the crime scene.
No other details were released.
Terrorism expert [Steven Emerson] monitors the Mid-South (WMC-TV Memphis 2/23)
By Anna Marie Hartman
"Steven Emerson has been both criticized and recognized for his revelations about Islamic terrorist groups. Opinions about Emerson run the gamut, from being accused of anti-Muslim prejudice, to being called one of the world's most diligent investigators of terrorism. The fact is, Steven Emerson was tracking terrorism long before it became a household word.
Shortly after he arrived in Memphis, Emerson got word of the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. "This shows the extent to which militant Islamic groups will go to be successful in threatening and killing journalists," said Emerson.
While Emerson monitors events in the Middle East he is also following the investigation of 5 Middle Eastern men arrested in Memphis for allegedly trying to buy driver's licenses without proper documentation. "The ability to acquire false identification from driver's licenses to social security numbers is absolutely scandalous," he added. Emerson has no knowledge of the suspects long term motives, but he suspects they were in Tennessee because of its reputation for being a place where it's easy to get false identification.
What Emerson finds most troubling about the case, is the mysterious death of Katherine Smith, the woman who died in a car fire just days after she was accused of selling the licenses. "I don't have any evidence at this point that any of the five men are directly tied to terrorist groups, but clearly the convergence of what happened raises a lot of questions," said Emerson. Questions, Emerson says, the F-B-I is working hard to answer.
While he has no evidence that there are terrorist cells operating in the Memphis area, Emerson says F-B-I agents once assigned to counter-terrorism cases have be reassigned to the driver's license fraud case here in Memphis."
You think?............. Naaaaah...Still.....Hard to prove now.
A good clue, I suppose, that the FBI believes there might be a connection. And rightly so...
You think Emerson is a freeper?
You can bet on it.
I used to deal with shell station owners.
I'd also be willing to bet the guy who owns the roswell rd. shell is sympathetic with Palestinian causes.
Just coincidence? Or is there evidence?
Another clinton voter???
Hope this is changed soon.
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