DOSSIER OF (AMERICAN) SACRAMENTO STATE UNIV. STUDENT REPORTED KILLED IN YEMENI C.I.A. DRONE ATTACK

Original Article: Accused Terrorist on Trial in Jordan Attended Classes at Sac State; Initiation to Terrorism May Have Started in Sacramento, According to Published Reports.

Former Sacramento State student Raed Hijazi at his trial in Jordan Nov. 26. Hijazi pleaded innocent to nine charges stemming from a plot to execute terrorist attacks on America and Israel during Millenium celebrations in December 1999. Courtesy Photo/A

He was a typical California student. Born in San Jose Dec. 3, 1968, Raed Hijazi eventually attended Sacramento City College, took a Sacramento State extension course in the spring of 1988, then began attending Sac State as a full-time business major in the spring of 1989. Hijazi enrolled in five classes that first semester, including three upper division business classes, and earned a 2.43 grade point average, according to his transcript. He returned in the fall, took 15 units, withdrew from one class and finished the semester with a 1.65 grade point average. That fall marked the end of the 21-year-old’s studies at Sac State and, like so many other students, he faded into oblivion without appearing in the college yearbook or in the alumni directory.

But Hijazi’s life has changed drastically in the past 12 years. On Monday, he pleaded innocent in a Jordanian court to nine charges, including "possession of arms and explosives and conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets” during millennium celebrations nearly two years ago, according to an Associated Press report from Jordan.

Local NBC affiliate KCRA3, in addition to several other news sources including CNN and The New York Times, recently reported that Hijazi has possible connections to Osama bin Laden, the man suspected of plotting the Sept. 11 attacks on Washington and New York. In addition, U.S. Customs officials found evidence of financial transactions between Hijazi and Nabil al-Marabh, a man being held in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks.

Hijazi was first tried in absentia last year, because he could not be found at the time of his trial, according to the Jordan Times. In September 2000, he was sentenced to death for the millennium bomb plots. According to a CNN report, Hijazi “was apprehended in Damascus on Oct. 1 (2000) and was later extradited to Jordan.” Under Jordanian law, he may be retried, and that trial began in September.

Although Hijazi pleaded innocent Monday, an Oct. 24 article in the Christian Science Monitor cited a Jordanian government prosecutor who confirmed that Hijazi had admitted to plotting to bomb a hotel containing hundreds of American and Israeli tourists. He supposedly bragged that “there wouldn’t be enough body bags in all of Jordan to carry away the dead.”

Hijazi has since claimed that he was tortured in prison and forced to confess, according to a Sept. 5 Jordan Times article.

What happened to Hijazi in the 10 years between the time he left Sac State and when the millennium plot was uncovered is still not clear. However, one possibility is that Hijazi became involved in terrorist activities while at Sac State.

“[Hijazi] told prosecutors that he had been converted to the Islamic cause while studying business at California State University in Sacramento,” read a New York Times article by Judith Miller. Why Hijazi might have gotten involved with potential terrorists is a mystery, although Miller wrote that he became involved with a Sacramento group called the Islamic Assistance Organization after attending a mosque.

“It was there, he told Jordanian investigators, that he met a Muslim from the Fiji islands who schooled him in radical Islamic philosophy and persuaded him to go to Afghanistan,” Miller wrote in the Jan. 15 article.

Whether that report is accurate is not known, but Mohamed Hamada, president of the Sac State Muslim Student Association, thought it was false. He had no knowledge of any such organization, and neither did his faculty adviser.

“Mosques don’t send people to other countries,” Hamada said, adding that neither he nor his faculty adviser had ever heard of the radical group.

Imam Hamdani of the Islamic Center of Sacramento has been in Sacramento since 1975 and also said he had no recollection of a group like the one described by Miller. Calls to several other mosques in the Sacramento area were not returned.

Officials and faculty members at Sac State didn’t recognize Hijazi’s name, although one professor did recognize his face when shown a copy of Hijazi’s 1997 Boston cab driver’s license.

“His face is familiar, but I cannot remember anything about him,” said Ayad Alqazzaz, who taught a sociology class taken by Hijazi in the 1989 winter inter-session. “You remember the ones who talk in class and ask questions,” he said.

My wife was a business student at Cal State Sacramento in 1989, while I was a journalism student there, and a business minor. I wrote for the Sac State Hornet. My wife is a Malay moslem, but she doesn't remember the terrorstani. At the time, I discovered to my considerable amazement, that some moslems there had the use of a large room on the second floor of the Student Union for the purpose of holding Islamic religious services. No other religious groups were allowed to do such a thing. (The University President, a Mr. Gerth, happened to be friends with some moslem cabinet members of the Malaysian government, including the then Foreign Minister, whose daughter was my girl friend's roommate). It was kept quiet.

There were lots of moslems on campus back then, including a large number of Palestinians, not to mention Lebanese and others.

What the Palestinians were doing there, I never did figure out. The University made some kind of arrangements . . .

The Imam Hamdani mentioned in the article is of Kurdish ancestry. He performed a marriage ceremony for my wife and I. I have found him to be a good man, and a straight shooter. He has for years followed a policy of strict independence from other Islamic organizations, something I'm sure he is glad of now. Back in the mid 90's he was a Rush fan, and might still be.

One of the other mosques in Sac held two fund raisers for the Number Two man in Al-Queda in the late '90's. Later, they admitted it to the media, but claimed they didn't know who he was, or where the money was headed. You know now how it works . . . moslem charities. Want to buy some swamp land in Arabee? They quite recently had a CAIR spokesman out to speak to the faithful. CAIR is afiliated with Hamas per the FBI, basically their PR arm. This mosque is loaded with Arabs from Egypt and Saudi. They have the gaul to fly an American flag out front. I call that camoflage.

I once wrote a two part article for their magazine on Malaysia. They published the first part on economics and growth, but the second part on the social scene there was killed. It mentioned such things as moslem women wearing mini skirts, legalized gambling, including Nevada style casinos, nude beaches, adult beverages, night clubs, Christmas as a national holiday, and other aspects of tolerance and live and let live. Oh, yes, mostly moslem Malaysia does indeed have nude beaches. No big deal. One of the killees of my story was an Arab prof at Sac State. Go figure. Of course, he didn't know about the Al-Queda connection, either, or so . . . even though he's from Egypt.

One night my wife and I attended a speaker's presentation on Malaysia. The white American moslem leftist would not call on me when I raised my hand to ask questions or make comments. His discussion was mostly about the Anwar Ibrahim affair. I had a lot to contribute on the matter, as my wife's father worked in the Prime Minister's office, and had also worked for Anwar, now in prison. (Suffice it to say the Malaysian government had 10 times as much on Anwar as they tried him for). The group did not want to hear it. I was finally allowed to speak, but this lead to outbursts of ranting, raving expressions of hatred and malice. I mean, standing up, red faced screaming. We left. The group is mostly middle eastern, especially Arabs. Malaysia is the second oldest democracy in Asia, following the form of their British mentors. As a moslem democracy, it far outdistances Turkey.

But, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't want any of you to think I have a bad attitude. They say it's a religion of peace.

Observe the top photograph is Nabil Al-Marabh,
my famous neighbour,
who worked 1 block down the street from me,
at Best Copy, 7 Charles Street, Toronto,
where he industriously produced fake documents
for his many friends,
one of whom may have been Atta himself,
who reportedly was seen several times
on the premises.

When he was captured
several days after 09-11-01
near Chicago.
Marabh had several fake passports in his possession
as well as a diary with notations and diagrams in Arabic
relating to a U.S. base in Turkey,
the American "foreign minister"
and an airport in Amman, Jordan,
and other sketches of airports.

Marabh
for some strange reason
was not imprisoned in Chicago
but rather was sent to Buffalo
where he once had lived.

Marabh possessed a license
to drive trucks carrying hazardous material,
including explosives and radioactive material
and frequently had travelled
between Buffalo and Niagara Falls,
Canada.

Amazingly,
Marabh was released from detention
and deported to Syria a few months ago.

The arrest of the Yemeni 7
in Buffalo
followed shortly after his release.

So many links
and complications here
my head is spinning.

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