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| Britain | ||||||
| Fake Passports Sold at Mosque | ||||||
| 2003-03-16 | ||||||
A MUSLIM extremist is making fake passports to help fanatics sneak into Britain.
The scam exposes a huge hole in national security as fears grow of a terror attack in Britain. Our investigator bought three phoney passports from a North African fundamentalist who boasts of supplying fake documents to fanatics. One was even in the name of Midhat Mursi, Osama bin Laden's chemical weapons mastermind dubbed Dr Death and currently on the run from the FBI. The £300 passports were supplied by Nabjid Mekdaia - a Mujahadeen warrior who has vowed to fight for Saddam Hussein in Iraq against British soldiers. He boasted: "I am going to Iraq for Jihad (holy war). I am going for bin Laden. Everybody comes to me for passports. I make passports and then go to the mosque to hand it to them." Mekdaia, 29, "works" from a mosque at the Muslim Welfare House on London's Seven Sisters Road. He uses the prayer room there - where he says worshippers are doused in alcohol-free Mujahadeen fighters' perfume before they pray - to cover his illicit trade in passports. Sunday Mirror investigators first negotiated the sale of one counterfeit French passport as he put his shoes back on seconds after praying. Mekdaia said: "I do a good job, my brother. Everybody comes and gives me a deposit, photo, first name and surname, date of birth, height and eye colour. Then tomorrow they come and take their passport. They say, 'Thank you, brother', and go away." To the man in the street, Mekdaia looks like a well-to-do businessman sporting expensive designer casual clothes and tinted shades. But he is a fanatical zealot who hates Britain and the USA and insists that he is going to Iraq to fight in the war against the West. Our investigator said to him: "When you told me that you were going to Iraq I thought you were joking." Mekdaia answered: "I do not joke. I'm serious - serious! This is my job. I am going for bin Laden." Our investigators told Mekdaia that Midhat Mursi was hiding out in the war-torn Islamic state of Chechnya and needed to travel to Britain. Mursi, a leader in the Egyptian Islamic Jihad movement, is in the top 50 on the FBI's most wanted terrorists list with a five million dollar bounty on his head. Before the fall of the Taliban, Egyptian-born Mursi ran al-Qaeda's chemical weapons programme near Jalalabad in Afghanistan. He made worldwide headlines last year after videotapes from the camp showed live puppies writhing in pain after being exposed to a chemical agent. Where are PETA when we need them?? At the camp Mursi trained terrorists to deploy chemical weapons. His "pupils" included one man who was imprisoned in the US for a plot to bomb Los Angeles airport in 2000. Mekdaia boasted how he also sells fake National Insurance cards so that illegal immigrants can work in the UK or claim benefits. The bogus ID also helps terrorist cells blend into British society and open bank and credit card accounts. Mekdaia, who conducted his shady conversations in French, Arabic and broken English, said: "I make fake National Insurance numbers. Sometimes the names on the cards, along with a number, I just make them up in my head. The card is original but the number is fake. "I made three for Mohammed (another client) last week. Every week he comes and collects three or four with different names."
Our reporter told Mekdaia that we needed a fake passport to smuggle another muslim extremist into Britain from Germany. He said: "He could travel here if he wants to. He can work here." Looking from side to side, Mekdaia bragged that he had made passports for North Africans, Ghanaians and people from the Ivory Coast in Africa. "They take the plane and come here without problems," he said. He explained how he switches the photographs from one passport to another and doctors details. He grinned: "I take the picture out and put in another picture, put the plastic on and that's it." Mekdaia introduced our investigator to an illegal immigrant called Hasman who came to the UK on one of Mekdaia's passports. Hasman said: "Don't worry, he has made passports for everybody, even me. He makes you a passport and you could go to Canada on it, I swear. Look at mine. The passport name is not mine but the picture is me." Mekdaia, who lives in a shabby tower block in North London, was constantly suspicious of our investigator. The following day he insisted that our man spent nearly eight hours waiting in the Muslim Welfare House and nearby Cafe Paradis. The cafe is packed full of smartly-dressed North Africans sipping cappuccinos and talking on mobile phones, so that he could keep an eye on him. Shortly after midnight, Mekdaia phoned our investigator and told him to go to Manor House tube station about one mile away. A runner called Ali, who also sells untraceable stolen mobile phones, appeared from the shadows and handed over a French passport in our reporter's name. Several Muslims at the Welfare House told how it was common knowledge that Mekdaia was a dealer in illegal passports. One preacher said: "Every young man who needs one goes straight to him."
It seems they go to him for their more mundane needs, too. While our investigator was with Mekdaia, a man came up to Mekdaia and introduced himself. He wanted a car stereo. Mekdaia said: "I help Muslim people." Our investigator asked: "For free?" He replied: "Yes."
Officials at the Muslim Welfare House said Mekdaia had started using the mosque there earlier this year.
A spokesman for the French Embassy in London said: "These fake passports are a real problem, we are aware of that. The fight against terrorism is the highest priority."
Our investigation dossier will now be presented to the police - and Mekdaia will need more than a fake passport to get out of that. Does anyone know the source of the quotation: "What makes Western Civilization great renders it incapable of defending itself" | ||||||
| Posted by:George H. Beckwith |
| #1 Once agin,and no one at the Mosque had a clue what was going on. Tends makes a person look at proffessions of loyalty and friendship with a jaundiced eye. |
| Posted by: raptor 2003-03-17 07:39:45 |