10 August 2005MSNBCMichael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
A former Washington-area man accused in court papers of being the “American contact” for an Osama bin Laden “front organization” is now believed to be working for the new Iraqi government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, two U.S. law-enforcement officials and a longtime associate of the man tell NEWSWEEK.
Tariq A. Hamdi, who allegedly delivered a satellite-telephone battery to bin Laden in Afghanistan in 1998, has left the United States and has told associates he is currently employed in the Iraqi Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, said the government officials, who asked not to be identified because of pending legal charges against Hamdi.
Hamdi's precise status with the Iraqi foreign ministry could not be immediately determined. But one of the U.S. law-enforcement officials said that federal prosecutors were concerned enough about Hamdi’s current status that they undertook a legal review with the State Department to determine if it would prevent them from charging him with federal crimes because of diplomatic immunity. But the prosecutors determined that his diplomatic status was “irrelevant” because the crimes they were considering charging him with took place before the current Iraqi government even existed, the official said.
Hamdi, an Iraqi-born American citizen who formerly lived in the Washington suburb of Herndon, Va., and worked for an Islamic think tank, has long been under scrutiny by federal law-enforcement agents in connection with a broader, three-year long probe into a web of Islamic charities with suspected terror links. According to court papers just unsealed in recent weeks, Hamdi had been secretly indicted by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., last May on charges of immigration and mortgage-loan fraud. Among other charges, Hamdi is accused of inflating his income to receive two mortgage loans in 1994 and 1997, according to a copy of the indictment, which was unsealed on July 22.
The federal indictment makes no mention of any acts connected to terrorism. But in a March 2002 affidavit unsealed last week, federal customs agent David Kane accused Hamdi of providing “material support” to bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Hamdi traveled to Afghanistan in May 1998 and delivered a satellite-telephone battery to bin Laden that was then used by the Al Qaeda leader “to coordinate and command” his followers, states the affidavit--which was submitted by Kane to a federal judge in support of a search warrant for Hamdi’s home. Hamdi went to Afghanistan while helping to facilitate an interview with bin Laden for former ABC News correspondent John Miller.
The affidavit states that, after receiving the battery delivered by Hamdi, bin Laden used the satellite phone during the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that year. In particular, it states, he made a phone call to a number in Baku, Azerbaijan; federal agents later traced bin Laden’s claims of responsibility for the two bombings to the same number, the affidavit states.
The Kane affidavit further alleges that in a search of the London home of Khalid al-Fawwaz, a former spokesman for bin Laden who was detained by British authorities in 1998 and has been fighting extradition to the United States, British agents seized a flier for a Saudi opposition group called the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR) with which Fawwaz was associated. The flier allegedly had Hamdi’s Herndon, Va., phone number on it. The affidavit states that a “mail cover”--which allows federal agents to monitor the senders of incoming mail to a target--determined that Hamdi was receiving mail from a group called “CDLI”; Kane states that it was “not a mere coincidence” that Hamdi was receiving mail in 2002 addressed to an organization whose initials were “so close” to that of a bin Laden “front” organization whose flier was seized from Fawwaz’s home. “In short, I believe that the receipt of the letter addressed to 'CDLI' at Hamdi’s house in Jan. 2002 means that Hamdi is still the American contact for at least one bin Laden front organization,” the Kane affidavit states.
Federal agents were principally interested in Hamdi because of his connection to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), a northern Virginia think tank that has been one of the targets of a sweeping three-year investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alexandria into Islamic charities and foundations suspected of terrorism links. The unsealed Kane affidavit notes that Hamdi had been employed by IIIT in charge of one its publications and was observed by another federal agent transporting IIIT documents between his home and office; that observation gave the agents probable cause to search Hamdi’s residence in 2002.
Hamdi, believed to be in Ankara, could not be reached for comment, and a friend and longtime associate, former CIA official Vince Cannistraro, said that he doesn’t know if Hamdi currently has a lawyer. But Cannistraro, who said he has remained in e-mail contact with Hamdi since he has gone to work for the Iraqi government, denounced the criminal charges against Hamdi as “pissant” and “hilarious,” and noted that federal law-enforcement officials were unable to charge him with anything connected to terrorism. “They have a three-year investigation and they end up charging him with mortgage fraud? It’s unbelievable,” said Cannistraro.
As a consultant for ABC News, Cannistraro had used Hamdi to contact Fawwaz in London in order to arrange the 1998 interview with bin Laden for Miller. (Miller, formerly of ABC News, now supervises counterterrorism investigations for the Los Angeles Police Department. He was on vacation Wednesday and could not be reached for comment, according to a woman who answered the phone in his office.)
Hamdi was “instrumental” in setting up the bin Laden interview, said Cannistraro, who added: “It could not have happened without him.” But Cannistraro denied that Hamdi was connected with Al Qaeda and pointedly noted that the federal indictment, as distinct from the Kane affidavit, makes no allegation to that effect.
In the past, Cannistraro has suggested to others that the satellite-phone battery that Hamdi delivered to bin Laden may have been “bugged” in order to help law-enforcement and intelligence agents monitor the Al Qaeda leader’s phone calls. Cannistraro declined any comment on that Wednesday but did say that nobody from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the arm of the Department of Homeland Security that has been conducting the Islamic-charities probe, had ever contacted him about Hamdi.
The disclosure that Hamdi is now working for the Iraqi government could cut two ways--depending on whether federal prosecutors ever produce hard evidence that backs up the allegations made in the unsealed Kane affidavit. Given that the Bush administration invaded Iraq in part because of alleged ties between Saddam Hussein’s regime and terrorism, evidence that a current Iraqi Foreign Ministry official had connections to bin Laden could ultimately prove embarrassing. (A phone call to the Iraqi Embassy in Washington on Wednesday was not returned.)
On the other hand, if no terror links by Hamdi are ever conclusively established, it could undermine the Justice Department’s contention that its multiple investigations into Islamic charities allegedly connected to terrorism are bearing fruit. While several criminal charges have been brought against individuals associated with the charities, no major terror indictments have yet been brought and, so far, there is no indication whether or not they ever will.
