Local Islamic leader has ties to raided Quincy co. founder
By Jonathan Wells
The leader of the local Islamic group planning to build a major new mosque in Roxbury is ``close friends’’ with one of the founders of the Quincy software company raided a year ago as part of a federal anti-terrorism investigation.

The friendship between Islamic Society of Boston chairman Osama M. Kandil and Ptech, Inc. founder Hussein Ibrahim was described to federal agents last year by a financier now awaiting sentencing in a terrorism-related immigration case in Virginia.

The financier, Soliman Biheiri, convicted last year of holding multiple passports immigration violations, told the agents during a June 15 interview ``that (Hussein) Ibrahim and (Osama) Kandil were close friends, and were both active in the Muslim Students Association (MSA),’’ acccording to a U.S. Treasury Department investigative report made public Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria.

Kandil, Ibrahim and Biheiri are subjects of a complex federal terrorism financing probe that began in Northern Virginia two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and has expanded to other cities around the country, including Boston, according to court records and law enforcement sources.

Kandil and certain other individuals involved with the Islamic Society of Boston are being looked at by investigators partly because of the group’s plan to build the largest mosque and cultural center in the Northeast on land in Roxbury, according to one high-level law enforcement source.

Another subject of the probe is Ptech, which was bankrolled by Yasin al-Qadi, a wealthy Saudi investor who has been officially designated by the U.S. government as a terrorism financier.

Ptech was raided by federal agents in December 2002 and remains under investigation, sources said. No officers or employees of the company have been charged with a crime and al-Qadi has denied any involvement in financing terrorists.

The company’s close relationship with al-Qadi is of concern to investigators because Ptech provided software and consulting to numerous federal agencies, including the FBI, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense.

In 1985, Biheiri and Ibrahim founded an Islamic investment company in New Jersey called Bait ul Mal, or BMI, Inc. Biheiri said he and Ibrahim took money from handled various investments for al-Qadi, including an initial $5 million for Ptech routed through Kadi International, a U.S. company controlled by al-Qadi.

Later, al-Qadi invested another $5 million in Ptech directly, without the involvement of BMI, Biheiri said.

Biheiri also disclosed in the interview that Kandil invested $25,000 in BMI and ``made a slight profit and received his money back.’’

Three other major investors in BMI were the mother, sister and nephew of terrorist leader Osama bin Laden, Biheiri said. Bin Laden’s nephew, Abdullah bin Laden, invested approximately $500,000 in the company and made additional investments in BMI on behalf of his terrorist uncle’s mother and sister, but Biheiri did not recall the amounts.

Kandil and Abdullah bin Laden were both founding directors of the nonprofit Muslim Arab Youth Association, a controversial group that served as a platform for extremist elements of the Islamic world.

The two men have also served as directors of Taibah International Aid Association, a group long suspected by U.S. authorities of supporting terrorism.