Free Republic

An Iraqi Kurd who federal authorities say tried to help a senior al-Qaida operative gain entry to the United States was ordered deported today. Immigration Judge Kenneth Josephson found that Sam Malkandi, of Kirkland, lied on his 1998 asylum application when he said he had been imprisoned in Iran for possessing forbidden political materials. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators say that in 2003, Malkandi tried to help Tawfiq bin Attash obtain a U.S. visa. The one-legged bin Attash, a former bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, also known as Khallad, is suspected of helping plan the attack on the USS Cole...

Note: The following text is a quote: May 6, 2010 ICE deports Iraqi national with ties to Al Qaeda operatives SEATTLE - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) today announced that an Iraqi citizen, who had ties to an Al Qaeda leader and was deemed a national security risk by a federal immigration judge, an administrative appeals court and a federal appeals court, was recently removed to his native country. Sam Malkandi, 51, was living in Kirkland, Wash., in 1999 when he attempted to fraudulently obtain a U.S. visa for Tawfiq bin Attash to travel here and purportedly receive medical...