Posted on 09/09/2002 5:12:29 PM PDT by Shermy
PORTLAND - Tests indicated explosives residue on the luggage of a local Islamic religious leader arrested at the Portland International Airport on charges of document fraud, a federal prosecutor said Monday at the man's arraignment.
Sheik Mohamed Abdirahman Kariye, 41, was arrested at the airport without incident around noon Sunday and booked at the Multnomah County Jail.
Kariye on Monday pleaded innocent to two felony charges of using false information - including a changed name - while applying for and receiving three different Social Security cards between 1983 and 1995. The federal indictment also alleges that Kariye used an altered birth date in a 1998 asylum application.
About 100 members of the Islamic community, including women wrapped in head scarves, crowded the courtroom and hallways to show support for Kariye. As Kariye entered, dressed in a blue jumpsuit and shackled at the wrists and ankles, the supporters murmured an Arabic greeting in unison.
U.S. District Court Judge Donald Ashmanskas set a Nov. 5 trial date for the case and ordered Kariye held until Tuesday, when the court will resume a detention hearing to determine if he can be released pending trial.
Ashmanskas said the court staff had not finished reviewing Kariye's background and legal status to make a release recommendation.
Kariye, who was born in Somalia, serves as an imam, or prayer leader, at the Islamic Center of Portland-Masjed As-Saber, a southwest Portland mosque, said Philip A. Lewis, Kariye's lawyer.
Charles Mathews, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon, had toured the Islamic center on Aug. 31 on an invitation from the board of directors, The Oregonian reported.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Gorder said Monday that Kariye went to the airport on Sunday with his four young children and his brother for a flight to Dubai, which is part of the United Arab Emirates.
Gorder said tests done Monday by the U.S. Customs Service on the party's confiscated luggage indicated "TNT residue" on two of the bags.
"As I understand, at least some part of the inside of the luggage or clothes in the luggage were at some point in contact with TNT," Gorder said.
He also said "several thousand dollars" were found in Kariye's bags, along with a checkbook that used a different variation of Kariye's name.
Kariye had told his ex-wife he was planning to leave the country permanently, Gorder said. Kariye's apartment lease expires on Friday, he said.
Gorder also said that Kariye, who appeared to have little money, had traveled extensively in 1999 and 2000 to Dubai, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom and Qatar.
Lewis said Kariye was traveling to Dubai to take a teaching job and decided to take his children to immerse them in Arabic culture. He said his client had made several trips to Saudi Arabia to make religious pilgrimages and to speak in his role as imam.
"He's worked other places, he's lived other places and he's gone to give sermons for his job," Lewis said.
He also said it is common for Islamic people to have multiple names. Variations of Kariye's name on document applications were not necessarily attempts at fraud, he said.
"My client's name is a long name and there are often variations which are not viewed as significant," Lewis said.
Kariye was arrested by the Portland Joint Terrorism Task Force - which includes FBI agents, investigators from several other federal agencies, and local police officers.
Kariye appeared calm in court, stroking his beard and answering only "Yes, sir" to questions posed by the judge. Lewis requested that Kariye, a severe diabetic, have access to his medicine, which was confiscated with his luggage at the airport.
He also requires a special diet, Lewis said.
He had three Social Security Numbers. Wonder how much of his "impoverished" lifestyle was supported by the taxpayers through SSI, Medicaid, and Food Stamps? If they don't nail him for terrorism, they should try fraud next.
All this travel to the Middle East doesn't quite match up with poverty either, does it? If he was really poor, he wouldn't be able to travel to Eugene, let alone Dubai.
Already the INS can't locate 300,000 of these creeps to deport.
It will be the Portland Mayor, Portland's city council, Portland's Chief of Police, and of course the liberal governor of the State of Oregon.
These comments are from a thread last winter: (Portland police have rejected U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's request for help in questioning thousands of young Middle Eastern men because the interviews likely would violate state law, the bureau's acting police chief said Tuesday. Link to thread )
http://www.assaber.com/
This guy is hooked up. Let's dig in and figure out what these Oregonians are up to.
Salafi? That means he is a real radical, mosque plus texts no doubt supplied by our Saudi friends.
Web site has a pic of twin minarets over Mecca. Eery - remind me of the WTC. Apparently the Kaaba at Mecca has two sets of them...wonder if they have special meaning, which made the WTC perceived as an insult.
Well, when he gets out of jail send him back to some Islamic country and let him have all the different names he wants.
Problem solved!!
I saw the thread where this number was derived. It included only 19 incidents since 1983. It included only successful attacks and ignored unsuccessful ones; (ie:the shoe-bomber). As I remember, it included only attacks where Americans were killed and ignored attacks against other Western free-world targets.
It is an accepted statistical principle that any result derived from a small sample spread over a wide base (years in this case) is liable to be bogus - no meaningful conclusion can be drawn from the sample.
An extreme example would be to conclude that the Islamists attack only once every ten years if there are no more attacks until September 11, 2011.
No, we have libs... sort of the same thing.
---Answer: Saudi Arabia.
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