Posted on 11/07/2002 10:54:40 AM PST by AmericanInTokyo
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.
Layla Bohm State Hornet (Student Newspaper) November 27, 2001
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.
This article was updated Nov. 28, 2001.
No, but Muslims do 'Talk' on the property of a mosque and it sure isn't beyond the realm of possibility,Mr. Hamada, that since the Taliban were in Afghanistan,that he heard/learned he could find funding for terrorism to begin his Jihad there, you freaking dope. How many more are Walking among us,in Colleges,in Supermarkets and at the Car-wash,huh? Too G.D. many is my reply. Not enough people talk about the possibility of those numbers......
LOL!
....just found it. is this is?
Other US officials said last week that they had evidence that a US (California State University, Sacramento)-educated biochemist and retired Malaysian army captain, Yazid Sufaat, 37, provided US$35,000 in Kuala Lumpur in the fall of 2000 to Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan descent, who has been charged in Alexandria, Virginia, with conspiring with the September 11 hijackers. Sufaat is also said to have met in January 2000 with two of the hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi, who piloted the plane that struck the Pentagon. He is among two dozen alleged Muslim extremists detained in Malaysia since December.
Born and educated in California, Hijazi had been radicalized through college contacts he met at the Islamic Assistance Organization in Sacramento. He concluded that the country of his birth was the enemy of Islam. Violence was the means to confront it. Hijazi traveled to Afghanistan, where he trained at bases run by al Qaeda. From there, he easily traversed continents with his U.S. passport. He worked as a cab driver in Boston, where he allegedly knew Nabil Al-Marabh, who was detained in Chicago last Wednesday in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. He came to Amman, where he assembled weapons, chemicals and other supplies from Syria, Europe and elsewhere.
And what has he, and his lab partners, been doing in their spare time?
A typical American? Named Ahmad (Ahmed) Hijazi? I don't think so! Real Americans have names like Mario Puzo, Jesus Gonzalez, Ted Kaczynski, Elvis Stojko, Rudy Giuliani, Geraldo Rivera, Steve Wozniak, Jean-Louis Gassee, shall I continue?
Because we have an American named "Hijazi" (first name: Ahmed, aka 'Jalal') as one of six killed in the car in Yemen a few days ago, and we also on the other hand have an American named "Hijazi" (first name: Raed) in Jordan under trial and then case thrown out.
The main al Qaida operative whacked in the Yemen CIA drone hit also in the car with the others was a mastermind the USS Cole Bombing.
Here's where it gets interesting. NOW, I HAVE COME ACROSS A "YEMEN/COLE BOMBING CASE" CONNECTION TO AMERICAN RAED HIJAZI IN JORDAN.
Here it is:
"As Yemeni Interrogators Visit Amman Cole Bombing Suspects'
Files Back to police
Yemenis interrogating into the USS Cole bombing in Aden, October 12, headed for the Jordanian Capital to check information on Raid Hijazi, of Palestinian origin, who was extradited last week to Amman by Syrian police. Sources said that the Yemeni interrogators left Sana'a last Friday to gather information about investigations carried out by the Jordanian police with Hijazi who is believed to have been involved in training Cole bombers. Yemen and Jordan signed a security agreement four years ago concerning fighting terrorism, exchange of information and extradite of criminals from both sides. Files of the six suspects in the Cole bombing were sent last Thursday back to police from the prosecution where they were before for further investigations, which the American investigators insist on. Meanwhile, official sources declared that the police identified the main suspect in the bombing named Mohammed Omar Al-Harazi, from Haraz east of Sana'a and it is now launching a huge manhunt in Yemen and outside. The police said Mohammed Al-Harazi main mastermind and financer of the bombers. Yemeni interrogators expected that the process of search for the suspects will widen to includes other suspects. This means that the investigation process will take longer time and wider range including persons thought to be somewhere outside Yemen. Sources in Aden said that Al-Harazi was living in the UAE and that he used to visit Aden, although he disappeared four days before the bombing. >He is thought to have to an anonymous residence outside Yemen. This development, may reveal further details about the case and the people behind the explosion. It is worth mentioning that around 35 suspects are still under arrest by the political Security Office."
From the New York Times in January 2002.
Mr. (Raed) Hijazi, now 32, shared that conviction. Born in California to relative privilege, he had grown up mostly in Saudi Arabia and Jordan. He told prosecutors that he had been converted to the Islamic cause while studying business at California State University in Sacramento. Mr. Hijazi began attending a mosque and cultural group in Sacramento called the Islamic Assistance Organization. It was there, he told Jordanian investigators, that he met a Muslim from the Fiji Islands who schooled him in radical Islamic philososophy and persuaded him to go to Afghanistan. The mosque, he told investigators, helped arrange his training at the Khaldan camp near Khost in eastern Afghanistan. Mr. Hijazi proved an excellent student, especially with mortars, a favorite weapon of the Afghans. He became known by his noms de guerre, Abu Ahmed the Mortarman and Abu Ahmed the American, according to Mr. abu Hoshar's statement to the prosecutors.
This just seems to be too much of a coincidence with the name of "Hijazi" and a first name aka for "Raed" Hijazi being "Abu Ahmed", and then reports of an American citizen named "Hijazi" killed in Yemen, who had the first name of "Ahmed" (albeit without the Abu). Can anyone share insight on this?
We just have to disprove that Raeda Hijazi is still in custody/jail in Amman, Jordan and then I think it is fairly well established this was one and the same person, IMHO. We certainly CAN prove it is NOT the same person if Raed Hijazi is still alive and in custody. That seems to be the challenge.
The big question tonight (or this morning, depending on your side of the international date line) is:
After the case of 2000 millenium bombings in the Middle East, against former Californian and Sacramento State-er Raed Hijazi, being thrown out in Amman Jordan three weeks ago (late October), was the dude then freed? If so, did he split Jordan? If he did, then this American most likely went straight to Yemen w/alQaeda-fellow USS Cole bombers assistance, but got wasted with them and is a now a pathetic putrid pile of charcoal out east of Sa'na, Yemen.
But, if Raed Hijazi is still in Jordanian custody as of 7 Nov 2002 awaiting a new trial, we need to shut down this FR thread and/or at least retitle it, since we would be talking about two different people, and the CIA killed somebody else who just happened to be an American terrorist last-named "Hijazi".
How can we establish this?
Allah's will.
Word search within the post for California, Sacremento, Moussaoui, Oklahoma, ammonium nitrate, or biochemistry.
Background Research on Yazid Sufaat: Malaysian Microbiologist and Al Qaeda-Hijacker Connection
self | 6/2/02 | self
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