Author: Danny Hakim
Publication: The New York Times
Date: August 29, 2002
The government indicted four Arab
men in federal court here today, saying they were part of a terrorist cell
operating in the Detroit area and were planning attacks in the United States,
Jordan and Turkey.
The men functioned as a support
group for terrorist activity and a "sleeper operational combat cell," the
indictment said. The cell's mission was to obtain weaponry and intelligence
and establish a support network for terrorist activity, including mail
drops and safe houses as well as fake driver's licenses, passports and
Social Security cards.
In addition, three of those indicted
worked at Detroit Metropolitan Airport.
They were taken into custody shortly
after Sept. 11, though one was freed for a time.
The group also was said to be trying
to recruit members and help other operatives enter the country illegally.
In Seattle, the government indicted
a Muslim man today on charges of conspiring to help Al Qaeda and trying
to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon.
At the same time, German prosecutors
brought charges against a Moroccan man accused of supporting members of
the Hamburg cell suspected of helping to plan and carry out the Sept. 11
attacks.
One senior law enforcement official
in Washington described the indictments in Detroit as significant in that
they confirmed warnings of counterterrorism officials that there were people
in the United States who were directly involved in helping global terrorists.
Another official said the Detroit indictments were not coordinated with
the one in Seattle.
Three of the men indicted in Detroit,
all foreign nationals, lived there or in nearby Dearborn, Mich., at various
times. The region is one of the nation's most concentrated population centers
of Arab Americans.
A fourth man, known as Abdella,
lived in Chicago and was said to have expertise in airport security and
producing fake identification documents. He sent instructions to the other
men in code, according to the indictment, and received money from men in
Europe he referred to as "the brothers." The authorities do not know the
man's full name, and he is not in custody.
The three Detroit-area men were
first taken into custody days after the attacks, when federal agents raided
an apartment belonging to Nabil Al- Marabh, a Kuwaiti who is in custody
in Batavia, N.Y., and who federal officials contend has ties to Al Qaeda.
Among the discoveries in the apartment
was videotape with surveillance footage of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif.,
and the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the indictment said. Previously
known to have been found in the apartment were a sketch of an air base
in Incerlik, Turkey, used by American forces, notes referring to the "American
foreign minister," and audio tapes preaching jihad.
A hospital in Amman, Jordan, was
also said to be a target of a potential attack.
The men charged today, under an
indictment issued by a federal grand jury, included the three taken into
custody at Mr. Al-Marabh's apartment: Karim Koubriti, 24, and Ahmed Hannan,
34, both Moroccans, and Farouk Ali- Haimoud, 22, an Algerian.
All four men were charged with providing
material support or resources to terrorists and conspiracy to engage in
fraud and misuse of visas. All except Abdella were also charged with fraud
and misuse of visas, permits and other documents, as well as fraud and
related activity in connection with identification documents and information.
A fifth man previously involved
in the case, Youssef Hmimssa, was not charged. Mr. Hmimssa is a Moroccan
whose picture was found on a fraudulent identity document in Mr. Al-Marabh's
apartment.
Kevin Ernst, Mr. Ali-Haimoud's lawyer,
said in an interview that Mr. Hmimssa had agreed to cooperate with investigators.
Mr. Ernst said his client was not part of any terrorist cell and that Mr.
Hmimssa had unfairly implicated Mr. Ali-Haimoud to save himself. Charges
against Mr. Ali-Haimoud, relating to possessing fraudulent identification
documents, had been dropped before today.
"The only difference between October
of last year, when the government dismissed the charges against my client
because there was no evidence, and today, when they issued the superseding
indictments, is one snitch," Mr. Ernst said, of Mr. Hmimssa.
Of his client, Mr. Ernst added,
"He's 21 years old and he worked as a bus boy and then at Edy's ice cream,
and he's supposed to be the mastermind of a jihad?" (Mr. Ali-Haimoud turned
22 in July.)
Jim Thomas, a lawyer for Ahmed Hannan,
said he was exploring what legal steps should be taken next but declined
to comment further. Neither Leroy Soles, a lawyer for Mr. Koubriti, nor
Stephen Rabaut, a lawyerfor Mr. Hmimssa, could be reached for comment.
As part of the alleged conspiracy,
the Detroit-area men worked at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and familiarized
themselves with its security procedures, the indictment said. Mr. Hannan
and Mr. Koubriti were dishwashers at LSG Sky Chefs International, a company
that makes meals for airline passengers, in the summer of 2001 until they
were both injured in a car accident that they said left them unable to
work, according to previous federal court documents.
Neither had access to secure areas,
but the indictment said all three "attempted to locate security breaches
that would allow them to, among other things, directly access airliners."
In addition, Mr. Ali-Haimoud worked at an ice cream parlor that was beyond
the security checkpoint.
Edward Seitz of the State Department
testified at an April detention hearing for Mr. Ali-Haimoud that anyone
in the defendant's position could have easily passed a weapon to a boarding
passenger.
"He could have obtained a weapon
from the food service area and have passed it to someone else boarding
a plane," Mr. Seitz said.
Charges against Mr. Ali-Haimoud
were initially dismissed after he was arrested in September because the
government said it did not have enough evidence to pursue a case against
him. He was arrested again in April while working at the airport ice cream
shop. He was working alone when he was arrested despite a requirement that
he be escorted at all times.
The original charges against Mr.
Koubriti and Mr. Hannan related to phony identification documents, and
they have been in custody since their initial detention. The initial charges
against all three were superseded by those in today's indictment.
Some of the more than 100 audiotapes
found in the apartment where the three men lived espoused a fundamentalist
brand of Islam called the Salafiyya, a term taken from the Arabic words
for the "venerable forefathers" of Islam. Salafists believe that much of
Islam today has been corrupted and they espouse a return to strict Islamic
law, and more militant adherents also believe Western governments, as well
as those of moderate Arab nations, should be overthrown.
A translation of a passage from
one tape, disclosed in a federal court hearing, said, "Allah, take away
the Jews and the Christians, and whoever helped and stood with them."
"Allah, kill them all," it continued,
"don't keep any of them alive. Destroy them with total destruction. Tear
them apart."
Mr. Ernst, the lawyer, said that
"there were 250 tapes, hours and hours of passages from the Koran and various
clerics interpretations, and they listed those three sentences." He added:
"You can find similar sentences in the Bible, where they condemn infidels.
I think it was taken out of context."
In the Seattle indictment, Earnest
James Ujaama, a Muslim who was born James Ernest Thompson, conspired to
provide training, facilities, computer services, safe houses and personnel
to Al Qaeda beginning as long ago as the fall of 1999.
A second count in the indictment
involved federal firearm charges.
