Sniper suspect sold fake passports, ran immigration scam

ST JOHN'S, Antigua (AP) -- During his strange sojourn on this Caribbean island, John Allen Muhammad was a friendly mechanic, an itinerant salesman and reportedly a purveyor of Antiguan passports to people looking to emigrate illegally to the United States.

The prime suspect in the US sniper shootings that terrorised residents in the Washington D C area also allegedly used a falsified birth certificate to obtain an Antiguan passport.

When Muhammad's life started unravelling last year, he chose as a refuge this former British colony where the chief of police is accused of bribery and corruption, and a young girl has accused the prime minister and his brother of having sex with her and paying her for drug deals.

The island is also a place where passports can legally be bought under a so-called "economic citizenship" programme.

Muhammad, who obtained an Antiguan passport on July 4, 2001, allegedly presented a falsified birth certificate from New Orleans, Louisiana, claiming his mother was from Antigua.

Lt Col Clyde Walker, Antigua's chief immigration officer, said it was clear the birth certificate was falsified.

"Even though he is not an Antiguan, this is a stain on the name of Antigua and we need to investigate this fully," Walker said.

Keithly Nedd, who lived in the house where Muhammad rented a room, said the 41-year-old US Army veteran also had a scam involving Jamaicans flying to the United States on the return tickets of people who flew to the island legitimately. Muhammad would organise papers or a passport for a would-be migrant in Antigua, usually Jamaican, to use the return ticket.

"A lot of people just came to him, gave him their birth (certificate) and he would just get them passports within days," Nedd said Friday.

Once, Nedd said, something went wrong, and police detained Muhammad at the airport, took him to the police station and held him for several hours before he was released. He said Muhammad had been trying to get a Jamaican on a flight to the United States.

"I raised hell in the (passport) office," said Nedd, who went to challenge officials in mid-2001, "but they denied my allegations and statement, they said it was not possible."

Neither police nor government officials could be reached immediately for comment yesterday.

"He told me he could get passports, any type of papers, and that he could get people into America," said Randy Nelson, a 35-year-old supermarket manager and barbershop owner who was a neighbour of Muhammad.

Nelson said he was "shocked but not that surprised" when he heard Muhammad, who converted to Islam after joining the Army, was the prime suspect in the shootings that left 10 people dead and three wounded.

"The very first time I met him, right here on this porch, he pointed his hand like a gun at a man standing in the windows of the hospital over there and said he could take out a man, could hit anybody, from that range," Nelson said, indicating a building in the distance.

He said they were talking about guns because Muhammad told him he was in the US Army and had worked with the FBI and CIA.

Antigua is also where Muhammad reportedly met John Lee Malvo, the 17-year-old Jamaican arrested with him Thursday in Fredricksburg, Maryland. Nedd said Muhammad organised papers that allowed Malvo's Jamaican mother, Una James, to reach the United States illegally.

Although Muhammad's passport was issued in 2000, Antiguan officials said he first arrived on the island in May last year. They had no record of his departure. Nelson said he last saw him in March.

Nelson and the principal of a school where Muhammad enrolled three of his children described Muhammad as a man who would repair a car or truck without payment, bring gifts from the United States and take neighbourhood kids on early-morning runs.

Greensville Primary School Principal Janet Harris described him as "very compassionate and genuine".

She could not understand how he could be the sniper who warned "Your children are not safe anywhere, at any time", after shooting a 13-year-old child. The boy survived.

"A lot of people just came to him, gave him their birth (certificate) and he would just get them passports within days," Nedd said Friday.

John Allen Muhammad wasn't exactly low under the radar, was he?
Wasn't Nathaniel Osbourne, the co-owner of the sniper vehicle, an Illegal Jamaican Alien, just like Lee Malvo and his mother?
Here are some other Caribbean links...
Man Arrested In Sniper Case Attended School in Fort Myers (Pic of House)
Suspect in sniper shootings lived in Antigua, while boasting of being CIA agent
Antiguan neighbor says sniper suspect touted aim
INS decision to free Malvo defended (SNIPER ILLEGAL ALIEN)
MICHELLE MALKIN on Hannity now! (DC Sniper Immigration Status: BREAKING)
Sniper Suspect's N.J. Links Probed (3rd man sought for questioning)
NJ MAN WANTED AS A MATERIAL WITNESS HAS BEEN ARRESTED!

I thought Muhammad was on Antigua in 1999, and that he met Malvo on the island at that time, when Malvo was 13 years old. That's what at least one earlier report said.

The 1999 date was a ballpark date reported by the 10/25 Jamaica Observer:

Reporters in Antigua said yesterday that Muhammad lived on the island between 1999 and 2000, apparently having gone there with his three children -- Selena, John and Taliba -- after the break-up of his marriage.

The Washington Post reported on 10/25:

In late March 2000, he picked up the children from school and vanished, according to court records. He later said he took the children to Antigua with their mother's consent.

"I went to the passport office before the shootings and complained and they didn't believe," said Keithly Nedd, who lives in St John's, the Antiguan capital.

THOMAS... Muhammad's certificate valid
Neither the island's police commissioner, Truehart Smith, nor senior passport officials were available yesterday to comment on Nedd's claim about the passport racket and that Muhammad was once arrested at Antigua's V C Bird International Airport, but released.

Muhammad, who was John Allen Williams before he changed his surname, lived in Antigua sometime between 2000 and possibly up to earlier this year.

But it would have been easy for him to come and go for he acquired an Antiguan passport in July 2000, on the right of citizenship by descent because his mother was ostensibly Antiguan.

In supporting documentation for his June 2000 application, Muhammad produced an Antiguan birth certificate of a woman named for that of Antiguan, Eva Ferris, born in St John's 12 November, 1929.

"This is a valid certificate," said Ena Thomas, the head of the passport division of Antigua's foreign ministry on Friday. "It has the seal of the Registrar General and was extracted on June 6, 2000."

Muhammad's own birth certificate, showing that Williams was born in New Orleans on December 31, 1960, also gave his mother's name as Eva Feris, but spelt with a single "r". His real mother's name, Merdie Holiday, was substituted in the document.

The Antiguan birth certificate was real, officials in St John's say.

There is an Antigua-born woman named Ferris, who lives in Connecticut.

She is the mother of a well-known Antiguan broadcaster, Maxine Allen, and Muriel Allen-Bennett, a teacher at Greensville Primary, where Muhammad's three children -- Salena, John Amah Jr, and Taalibah -- attended when they lived in Antigua after he had spirited them out of the United States following the break-up of his second marriage. Eva Ferris has a third child, a son who was born on December 23, 1960, eight days before Muhammad's birth date.

Eva Ferris' family in Antigua have hired local lawyer Harold Lovell to protect their interest and he has called for a full investigation by the Antiguan authorities.

"I feel that there is need for the local passport authorities to engage in a serious investigation to determine how this individual could acquire a false passport under false pretence and to determine how this could be prevented in the future," said Lovell, an Opposition senator.

But Nedd, a motor mechanic and handyman, insisted yesterday that Muhammad was involved in more than this single act of suspected fraud.

The ex-soldier and Gulf War veteran, who is accused of killing 10 people in the Washington area, had ways of getting Antiguan passports, said Nedd.

According to Nedd, he came to know Muhammad because of a relationship he had with a Jamaican woman who shared a house with Muhammad and his children

"I saw him with five (Antigua) passports at one time," Nedd said. "He must have had his contacts. He would leave the house at midnight and sometime put on a disguise and make his move."

Nedd also claimed that Muhammad operated a smuggling operation, in some cases using the portion of an airline ticket of a US traveller to send an illegal immigrant to the United States in the visitor's name.

"He sent people to America with forged US birth papers," Nedd said.

Muhammad and a 17-year-old Jamaican boy, Lee Boyd Malvo, were arrested in Maryland on Thursday in connection with the sniper killings that terrified the Washington area for three weeks and turned into one of America's most dramatic manhunts ever.

Nelson and other persons say Muhammad came into contact with Malvo because of an affair he had with Malvo's mother, Una James, who was living in the community of Villa about four miles from Ottos, where Muhammad lived.

James apparently left Malvo with Muhammad after he arranged for her to travel to the US as part of his immigration racket.

Nedd claimed to have tipped off Antigua police about Muhammad's activities and that Muhammad was once held at the airport as he prepared to go abroad on a trip.

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