Posted on 02/07/2003 11:02:35 PM PST by Let's Roll
He admitted considering suicide-bomb attack
02/08/2003
By TODD BENSMAN / The Dallas Morning News
In a rare glimpse at the government's domestic war on terror, a Jordanian student from Arlington admitted in court Friday that he had considered becoming a suicide bomber if the United States invaded Iraq.
Tahir Ibrihim Aletwei, a 30-year-old software engineering graduate student at the University of Texas at Arlington, spoke freely about his inclinations toward terrorism and divulged details of his interviews with federal agents during his deportation hearing.
"I was looking at America as my enemy," he said. "If someone would have approached me and asked me to do something against the country, I was willing to do it."
Mr. Aletwei said he had since had a change of heart and was confessing to help U.S. authorities better guard against people like him. He said he had not been approached by terrorists seeking to enlist him and had no target.
But when U.S. Immigration Judge D. Anthony Rogers referred to an FBI report quoting Mr. Aletwei as saying he still harbored thoughts of killing Americans, Mr. Aletwei conceded that the prospects of a U.S. invasion of Iraq had him again contemplating an attack.
Judge Rogers ordered that Mr. Aletwei be deported within five days, rejecting several pleas by the detainee to be released long enough to finish the last three months of his master's degree.
"I abhor the thought processes that you acknowledge," Judge Rogers said. "The issue we have in this nation since 9-11 is we want to act on the side of caution, and it will be necessary to send you home. That's my final ruling."
At one point, Mr. Aletwei proposed that he be allowed to stay in exchange for cooperating further with authorities, who had interviewed him extensively. The judge deferred to INS prosecutor Heidi Graham, the government's representative in the proceeding.
She declined the offer: "Had we known about what he calls his misguided thinking, we would never have issued him a visa."
Dallas FBI and INS officials declined to say what led agents to Mr. Aletwei or to comment on his case, citing confidentiality rules related to terrorism investigations.
Former FBI Associate Deputy Director Oliver "Buck" Revell said authorities probably had no alternative other than deportation, especially if the suspect seemed mentally unbalanced and unpredictable.
'A peculiar case'
"He's a peculiar case, I have to admit. I haven't heard of one like that, and I've been in the business for 35 years," Mr. Revell said.
Mr. Aletwei said that when agents asked him whether he was involved in terrorism, he said yes.
He said he proceeded to explain to agents that his desire to become a martyr was cultivated by his home country's hatred of the neighboring state of Israel and its most powerful ally, America.
Mr. Aletwei said in court Friday that he came to the United States as part of a Jordanian-sponsored student exchange program in August 2001. He said he came to earn an advanced degree in computer software engineering but secretly hoped for an opportunity to carry out a suicide bombing using explosives strapped to his body.
He said that though he had no formal training to carry out a suicide attack, he was mentally prepared.
"In my mind, I was doing a noble thing," Mr. Aletwei told Judge Rogers.
Mr. Aletwei said he told agents about his feelings and unformed plans as a gesture of good will to a country that had softened him with kindness since his arrival about 20 months earlier.
"I wanted to help. It's my duty to help," he said. "I want people to understand just how we think because if they understand how we think, they can prevent accidents like 9-11. I don't believe war or violence can solve anything."
Mr. Aletwei was arrested Jan. 31 on charges of violating provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which subjects violators to deportation. He could not be criminally charged because he has done nothing illegal.
Professor surprised
News of Mr. Aletwei's testimony astonished his faculty adviser at UTA. Mr. Aletwei had complained in recent months of government harassment and the revocation of his student visa by the U.S. Embassy in Jordan, said Dr. Arthur Reyes, an assistant professor of computer science at UTA.
Dr. Reyes, who taught Mr. Aletwei for a year, said his student rarely spoke of politics and struck all who knew him as well-balanced and as a genuinely good person. Dr. Reyes said he wrote a letter to the U.S. Embassy in Jordan at Mr. Aletwei's request to get his visa reinstated.
"There's nothing in his character that would indicate any truth to that at all," Dr. Reyes said. "That doesn't sound like the Tahir that we know."
E-mail tbensman@dallasnews.com
It equates to someone like me expressing my feelings for klintoon and friends to the authorities, which would probably get me incarcerated.
Defense attorney trick 101:
Encourage your client to display remorse, as sincerely as the client can possibly lie.
...He either wanted to kill himself, and a LOT of people with him....
..OR, he just wanted to stay the remaining 3 months & finish his degree.
Good grief!
Am surprised and pleased they're actually going to deport him.
Just hope they close the loopholes, so he can't get back in!!
I'm a UTA grad also, and like most of my friends I went there because the tuition was cheap, and you could further save on expenses by living at home. :)
But in my day it wasn't the cradle of ME students, it was more like their playpen, and they were spoiled little brats, to put it politely.
Looks like this ungrateful bastard can finish his "American" masters while he Master***** in the back of a dust hut thanking his prophet Muhammed for such clear guidance.
That's not all that should be done to him.....
This guy hates America, but loves what America has to offer (a UTA IT Masters Degree). Why did they give him 5 days? Weren't there any flights to Jordan that day?
How about the quest for "hero status" without getting any body parts blown up? The guy is an obvious nut-case, similar to those that admit to committing a high-profile murder (when in truth they didn't) just for the attention. He belongs back home with all of the other nut-cases he was raised with.
As for helping us, he would probably do his level best to throw us off the trail of the real homicide bombers.
Did he really say that! UnFLUCKING believable.
Unfortunately, that's always a possibility. It makes me sick to even think of it.
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