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| FBI probe that nabbed Padilla began in 1993 | |
| 2006-04-09 | |
Although Padilla is by far the most famous, his co-defendants in a trial set for Miami this fall were allegedly more active for a much longer period in recruiting would-be terrorists and advocating radical Muslim causes, according to court documents. In fact, the original FBI terrorism probe began a few months after Padilla, a former Chicago gang member, was released from a Florida prison in 1992 after serving a year on a firearms violation. Over the next decade, the investigation would lead from New York to San Diego to Detroit to Sunrise, Fla., where Padilla's alleged terror recruiter was operating. A potential obstacle to trial in the Miami case was removed Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court, which rejected an attempt by Padilla's lawyers to use his case to challenge President Bush's wartime powers to detain people indefinitely without charge. After the al-Qaida terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the investigation would lead to terror support indictments against two alleged leaders of the network - Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi - and later against Padilla, who was held by the U.S. military without charge for 3 1/2 years as an "enemy combatant." Padilla was arrested May 8, 2002 at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and later accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty bomb" in a major U.S. city. The Miami indictment, however, does not mention that alleged plot. The FBI probe began in 1993, the same year that al-Qaida first attempted to topple the World Trade Center towers with bombs in an underground garage. It was also the year radical Egyptian cleric Omar Abdel Rahman was arrested on charges of plotting to bomb New York landmarks and assassinate Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. He was later convicted. Thousands of telephone calls between those charged in the Miami case were monitored by the FBI and other U.S. intelligence agencies over more than a decade, but no one was arrested in the case until June 2002 and no terror-related charges were brought until October 2004. One reason for that was a legal "wall" that existed for years at the FBI to separate intelligence and criminal investigations. Passage of the Patriot Act by Congress a few weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks removed that wall, allowing criminal investigators access to a vast trove of intelligence intercepts, wiretaps and informants. The early focus of the alleged terror support operatives charged in the Miami case were the violent Muslim movements in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya, Eritrea and Somalia. Jayyousi, a Jordanian national and naturalized U.S. citizen, was a "supporter and follower" of Rahman, frequently talking with the jailed sheik by telephone in 1994 and 1995, according to the FBI. Shortly after Rahman's arrest, Jayyousi had founded the American Islamic Group, which published the Islam Report. This newsletter carried news about the sheik and details glorifying the exploits of jihadists around the world. "Jayyousi would update the sheik with jihad news, many times reading accounts and statements issued directly by terrorist organizations" in Jordan and Egypt, FBI agent John T. Kavanaugh said in an affidavit. Jayyousi, who lived in San Diego, Detroit, Baltimore and Egypt during the probe, also allegedly used the Islam Report to raise money for Muslim extremists through nonprofit organizations used as cover: Save Bosnia Now, later changed to American Worldwide Relief. This purported charity had offices around the world, including San Diego, Bosnia, Germany and Croatia. According to his lawyer, Jayyousi was interviewed by FBI agents eight times between 1995 and 2003 about his activities but wasn't charged until April 2005. He has a wife and five children in Detroit and was recently released on bail - the only defendant in the Miami case to win pretrial release. Jayyousi, who has a doctorate degree in civil engineering and served in the U.S. Navy, said in court papers that he never advocated terrorism and that his words in the Islam Report are protected by the Constitution's free speech guarantees. "Dr. Jayyousi has not been accused of personally participating in any violent activity," said his lawyer, William Swor. Hassoun, a Lebanese-born Palestinian, worked during much of the 1990s as a computer programmer in the Broward County suburb of Sunrise. He was also an associate of Jayyousi, helping distribute the Islam Report in South Florida and looking for young recruits willing to become mujahideen to fight overseas for extremist Muslim causes, according to the FBI. Hassoun was originally arrested on an immigration violation in 2002 and later indicted in the terrorism case. But he had been under FBI investigation since a January 1993 telephone call between Hassoun and Rahman, the blind sheik, according to court papers. One of his recruits allegedly was Padilla, otherwise known as "Ibrahim" and "Abu Abdullah the Puerto Rican," court documents say. Padilla had begun the conversion to Islam after his 1992 prison release. Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, leader of the Dar Uloom Islamic Institute in Pembroke Pines, said in an interview that he taught Padilla both Arabic and the Koran. He said Hassoun in the late 1990s attempted to speak at his mosque - Hassoun was affiliated with a Sunrise mosque - but that he was refused permission, partly because Hassoun was known to harbor extremist views. As for Padilla, Mohamed said he was "a quiet guy" who never demonstrated any radical tendencies. "I never heard him say or do anything that would give me the slightest idea he would think like that," Mohamed said. "Somebody must have seen his good nature and brainwashed him and turned him into that." After they hooked up, Hassoun in 1996 told Padilla to get ready to move to Egypt, which he finally did on Sept. 5, 1998, according to intercepted conversations. Padilla would eventually find his way to Afghanistan, where he allegedly attending an al-Qaida training camp and was eventually given the "dirty bomb" assignment by top al-Qaida leaders. Hassoun has also denied being an advocate of terrorism or that he recruited jihad fighters. A fellow Hassoun recruit named in the Padilla indictment is Mohamed Hesham Youssef, who had left the United States in 1996, the court documents say. Youssef, who is believed in custody n Egypt, provided assistance to Padilla in Egypt and frequently provided reports about their welfare to Hassoun, according to transcripts of intercepted conversations. The final Padilla co-defendant is Kassem Daher, another follower of Sheik Rahman who lived in Le Duc, Canada, and helped distribute Jayyousi's Islam Report in Canada. Daher left Canada for Lebanon in May 1998 and is still there, according to the FBI. | |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 I believe Elliott Ness actually began the investigation. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-04-09 19:00 |
| #2 boy - that made my jaw drop! title should be 1993, not 1983 :-) |
| Posted by: 2b 2006-04-09 11:38 |
| #1 Twenty years? Must have been some serious detecting going on! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-04-09 08:23 |