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| Somali Canadian held for al-Qaeda ties |
| 2004-01-22 |
| A Canadian man of Somali descent was accused in a federal indictment unsealed in Minnesota yesterday of conspiring to aid al Qaeda. Mohammed Abdullah Warsame was charged with one count of conspiring to provide material to the terrorist organization from March 2000 until he was taken into custody last month. Warsame, under investigation in New York as well as Minneapolis, told FBI agents that he attended an al Qaeda training camp at which Osama bin Laden was present during 2000 and 2001, according to court papers. Federal officials did not detail Warsame’s alleged activities in supporting al Qaeda, saying the investigation is ongoing. "I will not go into the underlying facts at all," said Minnesota’s U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger, adding that "bare bones is probably a fair description" of the indictment. Warsame, 30, has been enrolled as a student of computer programming at Minneapolis Community Technical College. The FBI questioned him Dec. 8, according to court documents, and Warsame admitted that he attended the training camp and used the alias Abu Maryam. He was arrested the following day as a material witness in an investigation underway in New York. Court records show that a name similar to Warsame’s — Mohamed Warsama — appeared on a Kenyan business card in the possession of Wadih el-Hage, a naturalized U.S. citizen who worked as bin Laden’s personal secretary. El Hage was convicted in 2001 in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. After his arrest, Warsame was taken to New York, where federal officials said they planned to seek his testimony before a federal grand jury. Authorities would not comment yesterday on whether Warsame testified. He was returned to Minnesota yesterday. Warsame is represented by the federal public defender’s office in Minnesota, but an official there said the office had no comment on the indictment. Canadian Embassy officials did not return calls for comment. Officials said previously that Warsame was at the al Qaeda camp with accused al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, and that he lived with Moussaoui at one point. Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges in Minnesota in August 2001. Officials have suggested that Warsame’s role is limited in the Moussaoui case. Federal authorities were upset at the public disclosure of Warsame’s arrest last month, because it prevented them from using him as an informant. The case had been sealed, and Heffelfinger vowed to try to prosecute any federal law enforcement officials who gave information to the news media. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |