Posted on 10/27/2002 1:34:15 AM PDT by BurbankKarl
John Allen Muhammad may have had ties to human smuggling
By Cheryl Phillips Seattle Times staff reporter
John Allen Muhammad
A picture is emerging of accused sniper John Allen Muhammad as a suspected human smuggler, which could explain how he paired up with illegal immigrant Lee Boyd Malvo, 17. In April 2001, Muhammad, formerly of Tacoma, was detained by immigration inspectors at the Miami International Airport. They suspected him of trying to smuggle two undocumented Jamaican women into the country, a U.S. government official said yesterday.
And a month earlier, on March 11, 2001, Muhammad was stopped in the airport in St. John's, Antigua, holding a Washington driver's license using the name of Russel Dwight and listing a nonexistent Tacoma address. He was trying to board a plane to Los Angeles via Miami.
An Antiguan immigration official, Ena Thomas, told The Seattle Times yesterday that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will begin investigating Muhammad for ties to a smuggling and fake-documents operation.
On April 14, 2001, immigration inspectors at the Miami airport stopped Muhammad because they thought he was using false documents. Inspectors also thought Muhammad was trying to help two Jamaican women enter the country with fake documents.
Lee Boyd Malvo
Muhammad and the women were detained. INS officials concluded that Muhammad, 41, born John Allen Williams in New Orleans, was a U.S. citizen and allowed him in. The women were deported.
Though Muhammad was allowed to leave the Miami airport, the U.S. official said, INS investigators pursued a criminal case against him and referred it to the U.S. Attorney's Office, but a federal prosecutor decided there was insufficient evidence to pursue it.
While in Antigua, Muhammad had lived with his three children, two girls and a boy, in St. John's, the island's capital. Malvo apparently was already known to Muhammad, who introduced the boy as his son, neighbors said.
Though he didn't have a job, Muhammad managed to send his three children to one of the island's few private schools. He apparently also made a positive impression there. Greensville Primary School Principal Janet Harris helped him obtain an Antigua passport.
"She said he was known personally to her for one year, six months, and that to the best of her knowledge all the facts in his application were correct," immigration official Thomas said.
Police think Muhammad may have turned to smuggling and falsifying documents to earn money. When he was stopped at the St. John's airport with the fake Washington driver's license, police questioned him and he then gave his name as John Edwards from Austin, Texas.
According to Antigua Police Detective Fitzroy Anthony, Muhammad wouldn't explain why he was carrying someone else's documents.
At the time, Muhammad was living on the island after having abducted his three children by his second wife, Mildred, who was frantically searching for them.
Muhammad slipped out of the St. John's police station without officers realizing it. Police searched neighboring streets but never found him, said Truehart Smith, police commissioner of Antigua and Barbuda.
Police believe Muhammad was planning to check into a flight but pass the ticket and documentation to another person so that person could travel illegally to the United States.
That wasn't the only instance Muhammad had fake documents. He received an Antiguan passport by using two fake documents: his own forged birth certificate and an Antigua and Barbuda-issued birth certificate for a woman he claimed was his mother, Antiguan authorities said.
On Monday, immigration officials plan to search for any record of Malvo's obtaining a passport in Antigua. So far, they have been unable to find any record of his arrival on the island.
"We can't find anything on the other guy, the 17-year-old, nothing at all," said Antigua's chief immigration officer, Lt. Col. Clyde Walker. "That means he might have come in under some other name."
After investigating the April 2001 incident in Miami, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service referred the case to the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami, hoping to prosecute Muhammad for alien smuggling or document fraud. But no charges were filed because immigration officials did not have enough evidence, the official said.
Muhammad's brief stop in Miami last year came as he made his way back from Antigua, where he apparently met Malvo.
Two months after the airport incident, Malvo entered the United States with his mother, Una James, arriving south of Miami aboard a cargo ship with other undocumented immigrants.
True, evidently the snipers called CNN when they could not get through to LE, the way it sounded CNN blew it off as a prank call.
I almost laughed but I'm too PO'd. I bring up stuff like this at work matter-of-factly and most people have absolutely no idea of what's really going on. Not even a hint of a clue.
Y'know, maybe I'm a bit daffy tonight or somethin',... but I've seen this reference two times tonight, and each time, the thought pops up of the anthrax letters which had a return address of Greendale Elementary School, and I'm reminded of his links to Camden NJ, near where the letters were sent from.
Maybe it's a stretch. Perhaps I just need to get some more sleep? After all, according to the FBI, Dr. Steven Hatfill is still lurking guiltily someplace out there!
Why is that shelter alowing someone to stay there who had a travel agent? Where did the money come from?
I am not a high-paid federal agent, but I think these are reasonable questions!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.