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| East Asia |
| Japan Deported Alleged Terrorist |
| 2003-11-05 |
| Japan last year deported a suspected al-Qaida member who was living in Tokyo as a house painter and is thought to have been trained at a terrorist base in Afghanistan, news reports said Wednesday. Naim Feroz, a 29-year-old Pakistani, was arrested in May 2002, was charged with violating Japan’s immigration laws and deported, Kyodo News and other Japanese media said, citing sources at Tokyo’s Police Department. Pakistanis turn up in the oddest places. At the time, he had been living in northeastern Tokyo and working as a house painter. A Tokyo police spokesman said on condition of anonymity that the man had been arrested and deported, but the spokesman could not confirm the suspect’s alleged connections to al-Qaida. The spokesman said Naim Feroz was a phonetic spelling of the man’s name, and it was not immediately clear if it was the correct spelling. "Or even the correct name, he is Pakistani, after all." According to Kyodo, police searched Feroz’s home after receiving a tip he had undergone training at an al-Qaida terrorist camp. Kyodo and other media said that during the search, they found documents linking him to the group and photos of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The reports said police also suspect the man may have been in phone contact with al-Qaida members in other countries during his stay in Japan. A National Police Agency official, Kunitaka Tomita, confirmed the arrest and deportation of Feroz and seven others. But he denied that authorities found evidence of an al-Qaida link. Earlier this year, domestic media reported that Japanese and U.S. security officials suspected a high-ranking al-Qaida member came to Japan in 2000 to raise funds and stayed until just before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. |
| Posted by:Steve |