Posted on 11/25/2001 6:33:08 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
This is what the paper calls "without warning"???? What are they supposed to do, call the guy up, so he could take off?
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/sptimes/search?QryTxt=Al-Najjar+
Ex-Tampa resident's name surfaces in bombing trial St. Petersburg Times; St. Petersburg, Fla.; Jun 3, 2001; SUSAN ASCHOFF;
Abstract: Tarik Hamdi, 39, a freelance journalist living in Herndon, Va., is referenced in court transcripts from the Manhattan trial. Hamdi arranged an ABC News interview with bin Laden in 1998, the transcripts say, and transported a satellite phone battery later given to one of bin Laden's associates. Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, is referenced perhaps a half-dozen times in the voluminous transcripts from the Manhattan trial. The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges that purchasing records show a satellite phone battery was shipped to Hamdi in Herndon, Va., and later delivered by him for a satellite phone used by bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, the documents assert. The phone was used to plan terrorist acts, it says.
Hamdi and [Sami Al-Arian] met at a Muslim Arab Youth Association conference in the mid 1980s. Hamdi worked at ICP while his wife studied at USF, Hamdi said.
Full Text:
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Jun 3, 2001
A man who worked for a political organization in Tampa nine years ago has surfaced in the trial of four men convicted Tuesday of conspiring with international terrorist Osama bin Laden to bomb two U.S. embassies in Africa.
Tarik Hamdi, 39, a freelance journalist living in Herndon, Va., is referenced in court transcripts from the Manhattan trial. Hamdi arranged an ABC News interview with bin Laden in 1998, the transcripts say, and transported a satellite phone battery later given to one of bin Laden's associates.
Hamdi lived in Tampa and worked as office manager from 1989-1992 for the Islamic Committee for Palestine, or ICP, a Palestinian advocacy group founded by University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian.
Al-Arian, ICP and WISE, a USF-affiliated think tank also founded by Al-Arian, have been the subjects of a six-year federal investigation for alleged ties to Middle East terrorists. Al-Arian's brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, was detained more than three years without charges on secret government evidence linking him and the Tampa organizations to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Najjar was released in December after a judge ruled his constitutional rights had been violated.
None of the men has been charged.
Hamdi, a U.S. citizen, is referenced perhaps a half-dozen times in the voluminous transcripts from the Manhattan trial. The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges that purchasing records show a satellite phone battery was shipped to Hamdi in Herndon, Va., and later delivered by him for a satellite phone used by bin Laden's terrorist network, Al Qaeda, the documents assert. The phone was used to plan terrorist acts, it says.
Hamdi told the St. Petersburg Times on Saturday that he took the phone battery at the last-minute request of a business associate. He was traveling to London, Pakistan and Afghanistan because ABC News was paying him to help arrange an interview with bin Laden. The interview took place in May 1998 in Afghanistan, according to court transcripts.
Hamdi, reared in Turkey and Iraq, says he is no friend to terrorists. In January 2000 he met with federal agents, he said, who asked him about bin Laden. The agents gave him security clearance to take a job on the defense team of one of the accused conspirators, Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali, as an expert on Islamic movements, Hamdi said.
He has a master's degree from Hartford Seminary, he said, and his work reporting for European and Middle East publications gives him many contacts.
"Everything I did the government knows about," Hamdi said.
The FBI could not be reached for comment Saturday. Hamdi and Al-Arian met at a Muslim Arab Youth Association conference in the mid 1980s. Hamdi worked at ICP while his wife studied at USF, Hamdi said.
Al-Arian and Al-Najjar support the Palestinian cause, but deny any terrorist activity. ICP and WISE were started during the first intifada, or uprising, of Palestinians against the Israeli occupation. A federal investigation of their activities in Tampa ignited when a former WISE administrator, Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, became leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in October 1995, a few months after leaving Tampa.
On Tuesday in federal district court in Manhattan, four men, including Al-'Owhali, were convicted of conspiring with bin Laden in the bombing of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on Aug. 7, 1998. The almost simultaneous attacks killed 224 and injured thousands.
Prosecutors are seeking to bring bin Laden, thought to be in Afghanistan, and a dozen others to trial.
Ashcroft should wear a picture of Al-Najjar on his lapel just below the flag pin the next time he has to publically defend his policy.
And we should spread the story that he was only released because he had spilled his guts to the FBI.
While we are flying him there, why dont we bring his brother in law along. The Israelis may have some interest in him.
I agree. Time to play hardball with these jerks.
Good one.
Bump!
Thanks for connecting more dots.
All is fair in war.
why detain a person who has never been accused of a crime
who has lost 31/2years of his life
and has nowhere to go?
what does the statue of liberty say, "send us your hungry, your poor, your downtrodden and those who have nowhere else to go because they are terrorists..."
Remind me not to get my prescription filled at THAT pharmacy.
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) - A Palestinian man who was held for 31/2 years on secret evidence was arrested Saturday for violating his visa and will be deported as a threat to national security, the Department of Justice said Saturday.
The Justice Department said in a statement Saturday that Mazen Al-Najjar has ties to alleged terrorist front organizations, including a University of South Florida Islamic studies group.
``This case underscores the Justice Department's commitment to address terrorism by using all legal authorities available,'' the agency's statement said. Justice Department officials did not immediately return calls for comment.
Martin Schwartz, an attorney for Al-Najjar, said he would fight the decision.
``The government is using him as a guinea pig to test their powers to detain foreigners,'' Schwartz said. ``The government is aware Dr. Al-Najjar has no travel documents allowing him re-entry to the United Arab Emirates or any other country.''
The arrest came after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta upheld Al-Najjar's final deportation order, which would send him to the United Arab Emirates. Al-Najjar lived there before coming to the United States in the 1980s.
Al-Najjar was being held Saturday at the Federal Correctional Institution at Coleman, about 65 miles north of Tampa.
Al-Najjar, whose visa expired several years ago, was arrested in 1997 on secret evidence as a threat to national security. He spent 31/2 years in prison based on a one-sentence summary of classified evidence against him before he was freed in December 2000. At the time of his release, former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno (news - web sites) said Al-Najjar could be deported for visa violations.
He helped run the Islamic studies group, called World and Islam Studies Enterprises, and a Palestinian charity in the early 1990s. He has been in the United States for 20 years.
The U.S. government maintained that the Florida organizations fronted for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has claimed responsibility for terrorist bombings in the Middle East, including two this month.
The World and Islam Studies Enterprises, which was founded by Al-Najjar's brother-in-law, Sami Al-Arian, was raided by the FBI in 1995 and its assets were frozen. Al-Arian has been on paid leave from USF since late September pending an internal review of campus safety and an investigation of a telephone death threat he received.
A former head of the think tank, Ramadan Abdulah Shallah, left it in 1995 and resurfaced as the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Al-Najjar has never seen the secret evidence against him. He and his wife have three U.S.-born daughters. [End]
The FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force plans to round up between three and five suspects on charges they "aided and abetted" the 19 hijackers who turned two commercial jets into explosive missiles that brought down the Twin Towers, wrecked the Pentagon and claimed nearly 4,000 innocent lives.
"These are not material witnesses," one law-enforcement source said. "They facilitated the attack. They aided and abetted the hijackers."
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