Arrested: Terrorists or Immigrant Workers?

Arrested: Terrorists or Immigrant Workers?

Kevin Curran, NewsMax.com
Thursday, Oct. 25, 2001

The case around three New Jersey residents arrested in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks gets more confusing as further details emerge.

The facts that caught the interest of investigators:

Ayub Ali Khan and Mohammed Jaweed Azmath are citizens of India who allegedly obtained multiple passports under false names.
Khan and Azmath boarded a San Antonio-bound TWA flight in Newark on Sept. 11.
Two boxcutters and a pocketknife were said to be found in the pair’s carry-on bags.
The men had recently lost $300-a-week jobs but were reportedly carrying $5,600 in cash.

Agents say Khan and Azmath had close-cropped hair and had shaved most of their body hair. Letters to the suspected hijackers instructed them to shave their body hair before carrying out their mission.

When approached by local police in San Antonio, Azmath quickly claimed, "I did not have anything to do with New York."

Khan and Azmath's roommate, Mohammed Aslam Pervez, was arrested for lying to agents about $100,000 that moved through his bank account.

Police in San Antonio have released more details of Khan and Azmath's arrest on Sept. 12. Sgt. Brad Johnson tells the New York Times that officers were suspicious of the men because they bought their train tickets with cash. Johnson says the pair were quite nervous and Azmath initially denied to officers being in possession of weapons or cash. They were turned over to immigration agents because of the questionable passports.

The men are now being held in New York, where they reportedly are not cooperating with investigators.

Agents intercepted a package Pervez sent to his wife, but later described its contents as personal papers.

Despite the circumstantial evidence against the men, agents have been unable to connect them to any terrorist plots:

They cannot tie these three to the group of hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.
No other passengers on TWA flight 679 fit the profile of a hijacking suspect.

While one Islamic leader admits some men shave their scalps for pilgrimages, he says shaving body hair is not based on any Muslim teachings.

Khan and Azmath told officers they went to San Antonio to open a fruit stand, just as they had told friends and relatives earlier in the month they would do.

Agents say they still have more evidence to check. Azmath and Khan had receipts for money transfers. They also want to know how the men could have sent $64,000 to India two years ago. They are also checking the Jersey City apartment for traces of anthrax. Finally, there has been a tip Azmath may have been seen with a man convicted in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Al-Qaeda
Homeland/Civil Defense
Immigration/Borders
War on Terrorism

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