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| US citizen charged with sending cash, equipment to al-Qaeda |
| 2006-06-08 |
| An American citizen who once lived in New York was indicted yesterday on charges of conspiring to send money and military gear to associates of Al Qaeda to use against United States forces in Afghanistan, federal prosecutors said. The defendant, Syed Hashmi, 26, was arrested at Heathrow Airport in London on Tuesday night as he was trying to board a flight to Pakistan, according to the United States attorney's office in Manhattan. Prosecutors said he was carrying a large amount of cash. He was jailed pending extradition proceedings. The conspiracy alleged in the indictment was based in London, law enforcement officials said, but Mr. Hashmi, who had been living in England for two and half years, was charged in the United States because he is an American citizen. He was born in Pakistan and came to the United States as a child, officials said. One law enforcement official said the arrest of Mr. Hashmi reinforced investigators' belief that New York was a link in a web of worldwide terrorist activity. Mr. Hashmi had an address in Flushing, Queens, until about three years ago, and graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in political science, the official said. The official said Mr. Hashmi was a member of Al Muhajiroun, or the Emigrants, a London-based group, now ostensibly disbanded, that praised the 9/11 attacks and was active in New York. Investigators have said a few members were involved in terrorist activity. The group has been linked to the Finsbury Park Mosque in London, which investigators called a magnet for terrorists. Between January 2004 and May 2006, Mr. Hashmi and at least one other man who has previously been arrested in New York conspired to provide "material support or resources" to members of Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden's terrorist group, according to the indictment handed up by a federal grand jury. Prosecutors refused yesterday to name the other man. But a senior law enforcement official said Mr. Hashmi was an associate of Mohammed Junaid Babar, another former Queens resident, who pleaded guilty to providing support to terrorists. The two men knew each other in London, the official said, where Mr. Hashmi introduced Mr. Babar to radical circles. Mr. Hashmi was "kind of a mentor" to Mr. Babar, the official said. The military gear was to be transported to Qaeda associates in South Waziristan, Pakistan, the indictment said, and used by Qaeda fighters against United States forces in Afghanistan. Mr. Babar admitted supplying gear to fighters in the same area of Pakistan. The indictment did not specify the gear, but another law enforcement official said it included night-vision goggles. Mr. Hashmi appeared in Magistrate Court on Bow Street in London yesterday. He refused to consent to extradition. He faces a maximum of 54 years in prison if convicted of all four counts. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #1 Yes, nice catch. Now we'd like to see him in Gitmo. Please send him back. |
| Posted by: SOP35/Rat 2006-06-08 01:31 |