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| Qatari Man Designated An Enemy Combatant |
| 2003-06-24 |
| EFL A Qatari man described by federal prosecutors as an al Qaeda "sleeper operative" was designated an enemy combatant by President Bush yesterday, as the government dropped criminal charges against him and turned him over to the U.S. military. Ali S. Marri, who arrived in the United States the day before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, was trained in computer hacking and the use of poisons, according to new information the United States has obtained from Khalid Sheik Mohammed and another captured al Qaeda operative. He was sent to the United States to help settle al Qaeda members arriving for follow-up attacks, the captives reportedly have told interrogators. Marri was transferred yesterday from a federal jail in Illinois to an undisclosed military brig, where he could be detained indefinitely without legal protections afforded to defendants in the court system. He may eventually be brought before a military tribunal. Marri, 37, lived in Peoria, Ill., with his wife and five young children. He had trained at the al Farooq camp in Afghanistan, where he met Osama bin Laden and offered himself for a "martyrdom" mission, prosecutors said. Federal law enforcement officials arrested Marri in December 2001. He was held as a material witness, then charged with lying to the FBI about calls he allegedly made in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks to a telephone number in the United Arab Emirates. The number belonged to Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi, suspected of managing a bank account used by some of the hijackers. Hawsawi, who allegedly received calls from several of the hijackers, was captured March 1 in Pakistan along with Mohammed. Tips to the FBI led to a search of Marri's Peoria apartment in October 2001, where agents found more than 1,000 credit card numbers on his computer, as well as audio files of bin Laden, photographs of the Sept. 11 attacks and a computer folder labeled "chem" that contained bookmarked Web sites with fact sheets on hazardous chemicals, including information on buying them. Also bookmarked were sites about weapons and satellite equipment, and an almanac showing locations of U.S. dams, waterways and railroads, according to court documents. |
| Posted by:Paul Moloney |