Author: Paul M. Barrett
Publication: The Wall Street Journal
Date:
URL: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB105406885465552500-email,00.html
Saudi Accused of Aiding Extremists;
Supporters Cite Free-Speech Rights
In the days after Sept. 11, 2001,
Sami Omar al-Hussayen led fellow Muslims as they joined an emotion-charged
candlelight march remembering the dead. The Saudi graduate student in computer
science at the University of Idaho helped organize a blood drive for victims.
He issued a press release on behalf of the Muslim Students Association,
stating that the small town's Muslims "condemn in the strongest terms possible
what are apparently vicious acts of terrorism against innocent citizens."
That's why people in this rural
university town were so surprised on Feb. 26, when Federal Bureau of Investigation
agents arrived before dawn in unmarked vehicles at Mr. Hussayen's home
to arrest him. The agents rousted him from bed and took him away in handcuffs.
Over the next two days, most members of the campus MSA, which Mr. Hussayen
formerly headed, were interrogated about their immigration status, extracurricular
activities and views of the U.S.
Federal investigators say that Mr.
Hussayen's public image was a cover for a secret career supporting terrorism.
The case against him raises difficult questions about Muslim students who
espouse extremist views, or support those who do. Some government officials
say the case is part of a broader investigation of current and former Muslim
students at Northwest universities who are believed to have ties to U.S.
charities linked to foreign terrorists.
Mr. Hussayen has been charged on
several counts of visa fraud. The indictment also alleges that he raised
money for the Islamic Assembly of North America, a Michigan organization
the government is investigating for possibly supporting terrorists in the
Middle East. Mr. Hussayen allegedly helped administer Arabic-language Web
sites that spew violent anti-Western views and the writings of radical
Muslim religious figures who encourage suicide bombings.
The FBI says that Mr. Hussayen has
communicated often with two radical clerics known as the "awakening sheiks"
because of their ideological influence on young Arabs. The clerics are
widely recognized as intellectual godfathers of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
terrorist network. Law-enforcement officials say that they are looking
into whether Mr. Hussayen has "provided material support to terrorists,"
a crime punishable by 15 years in prison.
"Muslim student organizations by
and large are good, wholesome and need to be there," says Kim R. Lindquist,
the lead federal prosecutor on the Hussayen case in Boise. But, he adds,
"under student visas, young people are allowed to stay here, and they can
make that transition fairly subtly and fairly quietly from appropriate
student activities to a manifestation of things that are inappropriate,
including advocacy of radical Islam."
Mr. Hussayen, 33 years old, is being
held in jail without an opportunity to post bail. Through his lawyer, David
Z. Nevin, he has denied any wrongdoing. "Sami does not hold terrorist views,"
says Mr. Nevin. "He believes that violence is inconsistent with the tenets
of Islam."
Mr. Hussayen's case provides an
unusual window into the world of Muslims from abroad studying in the U.S.
They are drawn to this country in part by the freedom it offers, but some
hold distinctly anti-Western beliefs. Many MSA members across the U.S.
say they reject terrorism. Yet many also express respect for the religious
and political views of Middle Eastern thinkers who endorse violence against
the West. Such seeming contradictions can make it difficult to sort out
the positions of some Muslim students. And the situation is especially
complex because so many students generally are prone to extreme rhetoric
they later moderate.
The Muslim Students Association
is a fast-growing network of 175 campus chapters that combine good works,
religious studies and leftist international politics. Members have led
protests against Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories and
the U.S. war in Iraq.
But there is more. The writings
of radical anti-Western Muslim thinkers are promoted on many MSA-chapter
sites. MSA chapters also have helped raise money for Muslim charities now
accused by the U.S. government of serving as fronts for financing terrorism
abroad. Some MSA members receive financial support from Saudi Arabia, which
for decades has tried to inculcate young people with a fundamentalist and
intolerant version of Islam.
None of these activities are necessarily
illegal, and many would seem to be covered by the First Amendment's protection
of free speech and religion. Altaf Husain, a native of India and the MSA's
32-year-old national president, says that most young Muslim immigrants
and second-generation Muslim Americans interpret radical Islamist messages
in unthreatening ways. They screen out calls for martyrdom and violence
and instead focus on demands for justice, he says. "Young Muslims love
the freedom of religion here," says Mr. Husain, a graduate student in social
work at Howard University in Washington.
Muslim friends of Mr. Hussayen's
say they knew nothing about his alleged fund-raising and Web-site work.
But some of them say they see nothing wrong with such activities. The students
shrug off suggestions that it is inconsistent to admire aspects of the
U.S., which Mr. Hussayen by all accounts did, and to help set up Web sites
that support holy war against the West. One Web site Mr. Hussayen allegedly
helped set up carried an article justifying the use of passenger airplanes
as terror weapons.
Mr. Hussayen, who is tall and wears
a full beard, arrived in Idaho in 1999 to work on a doctorate in computer
security. The son of a senior Saudi education-ministry official, he grew
up with six siblings in a comfortable home in Riyadh.
As boys, he and an older brother
traveled to Britain to polish their English. On two trips with their father
to the U.S., they toured Washington, Universal Studios and Disney World.
In the mid-1990s, Mr. Hussayen earned a master's degree at Ball State University
in Muncie, Ind., and also studied at Southern Methodist University in Dallas.
In Moscow, near the Washington state
border and surrounded by verdant farms and pastures, Mr. Hussayen and his
wife, Maha, lived modestly in married-student housing. He drove a 1992
Pontiac Bonneville, according to court records.
Mr. Hussayen soon became the
leader of the university's Muslim Students Association, which has about
50 members, including Saudis, Pakistanis and Kuwaitis. Many in the group
were impressed by Mr. Hussayen's grasp of religion and his kindness, says
Marwan Mossaad, a 25-year-old Egyptian immigrant studying architecture
and economics, who has permanent-resident status in the U.S.
The small Muslim community in Moscow
has no formal imam, or religious leader, and Mr. Hussayen often led Friday
prayers at the Islamic Center, a small two-story house near campus. In
talks at the mosque, Mr. Hussayen would sometimes "include some politics,"
such as criticism of Israel and the U.S. policy toward Iraq, says Mr. Mossaad.
"But it was more about religion itself and fasting and things like that."
Within Muslim circles on campus,
the dozen or so Saudi students tend to be the most socially conservative.
Mr. Mossaad, now president of the university's MSA, says that other than
in an emergency, he wouldn't offer a ride to Mr. Hussayen's wife for fear
of offending Saudi sensibilities.
Still, Mr. Hussayen appeared at
ease with many aspects of American life. The eldest two of his three young
sons have gone to public school and played on soccer teams. They have skateboards
and speak better English than Arabic, according to Mr. Hussayen's brother,
Abdul, a 34-year-old cardiologist in Toronto. "Their culture has been the
culture of the United States kids," he said in court testimony in March.
He recalled that he and Sami had joked about how hard it would be to go
back to Saudi Arabia, because they both enjoyed living in the West.
The Saudi government paid Mr. Hussayen's
educational expenses, plus a $2,700 monthly stipend. It is now paying his
legal expenses, says Nail al-Jubeir, spokesman for the Saudi Embassy. He
says that his government financially supports roughly 3,500 Saudi students
at U.S. colleges and universities. The Saudi government doesn't directly
support the MSA, Mr. Jubeir says. But Saudi government-backed charities
and individual Saudis, many of whom went to American universities or are
parents of students in the U.S., have given money to Muslim campus groups
since they began in the U.S. 40 years ago. And Saudi Arabia annually provides
scholarships to hundreds of Americans to go to the Persian Gulf kingdom
to study Islamic law and Arabic.
As one of three student members
on a campus ethnic-diversity committee, Mr. Hussayen impressed the chairman,
Raul Sanchez, a university administrator, as open-minded and mature. "I
very much hope he comes back to the university and finishes his education,"
Mr. Sanchez said at the March court hearing in Boise.
Federal officials, in court papers
and interviews, portray a far more dangerous image of Mr. Hussayen. Four
months before the Sept. 11 attacks, on May 11, 2001, the FBI says in court
filings, Mr. Hussayen registered with the state of Idaho as the official
agent of the Islamic Assembly of North America, based in Ann Arbor, Mich.
He had already been helping set up and administer about 10 Muslim Web sites,
most of them affiliated with IANA or linked to IANA sites, the government
says in court papers. Prosecutors haven't accused him of choosing material
for the sites.
Founded in 1993, IANA says on one
of its English-language Web sites that its mission is spreading "correct
knowledge of Islam." Its target audience includes young people and prison
inmates. Federal investigators are looking into whether IANA was involved
in raising money for foreign terrorists and raided the group's offices
in February. According to U.S. law-enforcement officials, IANA Web sites
in Arabic exhort readers to jihad, or holy war, against Jews and other
"unbelievers." On Sept. 9, 2001, the Arabic version of the IANA site (<A
HREF="http://www.islamway.com/"> www.islamway.com</A>) carried a posting
in which the author advocated jihad as "the only means to eradicate all
evil on a personal and general level," according to an excerpt in an FBI
court filing. "The only answer is to ignite and trigger an all out war,
a world-wide jihad." U.S. officials declined to provide the Arabic text.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the English-language version of the same site condemned
the killing of innocents in the U.S. terror attacks.
The government says in court filings
that on Sept. 11, 2000, Mr. Hussayen registered the Internet site www.alasr.ws,
an Arabic-language online magazine. The site is produced by IANA and provides
links to other IANA sites, according to Rita Katz, a Washington-based terrorism
researcher who is a native Arabic speaker and has consulted with the government
on the Hussayen case. In June 2001, alasr.ws carried an article by a Saudi-trained
Kuwaiti cleric titled, "Provision of Suicide Operations," according to
an excerpt of an English translation in court papers.
"The warrior must kill himself if
he knows that this will lead to killing a great number of the enemies,
and that he will not be able to kill them without killing himself first,
or demolishing a center vital to the enemy or its military force," wrote
Sheik Hamed al-Ali. "This can be accomplished with the modern means of
bombing or bringing down an airplane on an important location that will
cause the enemy great losses."
Ms. Katz, the director of the SITE
Institute, a nonprofit research group, says, "The English versions of many
of these Jihadist Web sites and publications don't have terrorist propaganda;
you have to know where to look on the Arabic sites."
The English version of the IANA
site islamway.com (<A HREF="http://english.islamway.com/"> http://english.islamway.com</A>)
offers articles on such topics as "Why Can't a Muslim Woman Marry a Non-Muslim
Man?" The Arabic-language version of the site in June 2001 carried an article
advocating suicide bombings against "unbelievers who have declared war
against the Muslims," according to FBI filings in the Hussayen case.
U.S. officials say that Saudi-backed
organizations and Saudi individuals have provided most of IANA's funds.
Mr. Jubeir, the Saudi Embassy spokesman, says the Saudi government hadn't
provided any funding to IANA and considers its religious views "extremist."
IANA didn't respond to repeated
requests for comment, but it has previously denied supporting terrorism.
Mr. Hussayen allegedly raised at
least $300,000 over five years for IANA. He used six bank accounts to collect
and disburse the money and had extensive e-mail and telephone contact with
the organization, the FBI said in court filings and testimony. About $100,000
of the money allegedly came in two installments from the student's uncle,
Saleh Abdel Rahman al-Hussayen. The elder Mr. Hussayen could not be reached.
According to the government, Sami
Hussayen's questionable activities also included his extensive contacts
with the two radical clerics, Salman al-Ouda and Safar al-Hawali. U.S.
officials say the two influenced al Qaeda's belief that Muslims should
wage holy war against the U.S. until it ceases to support Israel and withdraws
from the Middle East.
Tapes of Mr. Ouda's sermons, which
are distributed throughout the Middle East, were found in a bin Laden residence
in Afghanistan, according to the FBI. Phone records also showed that Mounir
el-Motassadeq, convicted in February in Germany of aiding the Sept. 11
hijackers, had made calls to the clerics.
Mr. Hussayen also made numerous
calls and wrote many e-mails to the two clerics, sometimes advising them
about running Arabic-language Web sites on which they espoused their anti-Western
views, the FBI alleges.
Mr. Hussayen came to the attention
of the FBI when it was contacted by an employee of a bank branch in Moscow.
After Sept. 11, the employee noticed an increase in deposits in Mr. Hussayen's
previously modest accounts and became suspicious.
The 11-count indictment of Mr. Hussayen
accuses him only of visa fraud and making false statements. It alleges
that while he claimed on several visa applications that he wanted to come
to the U.S. "solely" to study, he in fact pursued more ominous interests
once he got here.
At the court hearing in March, Mr.
Nevin, Mr. Hussayen's lawyer, pointed out that his client didn't conceal
his activities. The six bank accounts he allegedly used to channel money
to IANA were in his own name. He openly registered as the group's agent.
Terrorists don't operate that way, the lawyer argued.
As for his client's alleged role
in helping set up Web sites, Mr. Nevin compared Mr. Hussayen with the operator
of an online "chat room." Site administrators don't always endorse the
views expressed by users, he noted, and offensive opinions are protected
by the First Amendment. "Sami believes the resolution of these [international]
problems is in the marketplace of ideas and by intellect, not violence,"
Mr. Nevin says in an interview.
In Moscow, some Muslim students
say they don't see why engaging in the activities their friend is accused
of would violate the law. They note that Muslim students from abroad are
attracted to the U.S. precisely because they want to enjoy its freedom
of expression. If Mr. Hussayen raised money for a Saudi-backed nonprofit
devoted to spreading Islam, his friends say, they applaud him.
Many MSA members sympathize with
radical clerics' criticisms of the U.S. and Israel, without endorsing the
terrorism of al Qaeda, says Ahmad al-Own, a 20-year-old University of Idaho
sophomore from Kuwait and a friend of Mr. Hussayen. "These are top scholars,
brave men," who have served prison time in Saudi Arabia for criticizing
that country's relationship with the U.S., Mr. Own says. Sipping coffee
in a trendy campus cafe, he wears an Adidas baseball cap and a jersey of
black and gold, the colors of the University of Idaho Vandals sports teams.
Mr. Own says that contacting the
two controversial clerics isn't unusual, although he hasn't done it. "You
can call to ask advice" on religious questions, Mr. Own says. "I don't
find it shocking for Sami to have their phone numbers or that he sent them
e-mail."
English-language versions of writings
by the two sheiks are widely available on the Internet and sometimes are
posted on the Web sites of campus MSAs. The University of Southern California's
MSA recently posted an article by Mr. Ouda in which he argues that "the
security of the world is threatened" by "the Jews" and others in "political
circles and institutions with executive power in the West."
In response to questions, a spokesman
for the USC Muslim group, Nauman Shafi, said in a written statement that
it doesn't share the cleric's views, that the site receives "hundreds of
submissions, and not every article is fully reviewed before being posted."
Shadi Hamid, the U.S.-born son of
an Egyptian-American family who just finished his junior year at Georgetown
University in Washington, says there is nothing wrong with student interest
in radical Muslim thinkers. "The whole essence of America is questioning
the government, criticizing, dissenting -- that's the affirmation of patriotism,"
says Mr. Hamid, 19, who is chairman of the national MSA's Political Action
Task Force.
Muslim students also criticize the
investigation of IANA. "The Bush administration seems to think every Muslim
charity is terrorist. That's ridiculous," says Mr. Mossaad, the architecture
and economics student at Idaho.
This is a common view among Muslim
students. The national MSA until this month provided links on its Web site
to U.S.-based Muslim charities whose assets the Bush administration froze
in December 2001, because they allegedly funneled money to terrorist groups.
The organizations are the Benevolence International Foundation and the
Global Relief Foundation, both of which have been accused of having ties
to al Qaeda, and the Holy Land Foundation, allegedly a front for the Palestinian
group Hamas. The MSA removed the links earlier this month after a Wall
Street Journal reporter asked about them. Mr. Husain says it had been "an
oversight" not to remove them sooner. Lawyers for the three charities denied
their clients had any ties to terrorism. The head of the Benevolence International
Foundation pleaded guilty in February to one count of racketeering for
funding Muslim fighters in Chechnya and Bosnia, but not for supporting
al Qaeda.
Before the charities were shut down,
the MSA helped raise money for them, Mr. Husain, the national president,
says. He adds that he doesn't believe the charges against the charities
because the government, in his view, hasn't provided sufficient evidence.
The national MSA site still has a link to an IANA site.
Mr. Hussayen's lawyer, Mr. Nevin,
says he hasn't yet reviewed even a tiny fraction of the government's voluminous
evidence and therefore declines to offer a full-fledged defense. In court
proceedings, he has suggested that even if the allegations are true --
which he doesn't concede -- his client wouldn't have violated any laws.
At the hearing in March, Mr. Nevin accused the government of using "innuendo
and guilt by association" to tie Mr. Hussayen to terrorism. "You're not
required to swear a loyalty oath or to write a long dissertation explaining
all of the reasons that you love the culture before you're allowed to come
here and have the benefits of our system," he said.
