London Attack Suspect Is Also Sought by U.S.

A key suspect in the July 7 transit bombings in London has long been wanted by U.S. authorities for prosecution in this country, particularly after federal officials developed evidence three years ago that he was trying to help establish a terrorist training camp on the West Coast to wage war against Americans.

But federal investigators said they did not locate Haroon Rashid Aswat, a British Muslim of Indian descent, even after they agreed to give his alleged collaborator in Seattle a light prison sentence in the hope that the man would lead them to him.

Justice Department officials in Washington said Sunday that the Seattle man, Earnest James Ujaama, had been extremely helpful in putting together an indictment against another London Muslim, Egyptian cleric Abu Hamza al Masri, but that he had not led them directly to Aswat.

Had they found Aswat, officials conceded, it might have prevented the deadly London attacks on three subway trains and a bus that killed 52 people, plus the four suicide bombers. Investigators in Britain believe that Aswat had perhaps as many as 20 cellphone conversations with some of the London suicide bombers.

But U.S. authorities questioned a report in Sunday’s Seattle Times quoting unnamed current and former federal officials as saying that Washington had blocked Aswat’s indictment in Seattle.

“That’s obviously not true,” one senior Justice Department official with intimate knowledge of the Seattle case said Sunday. “There were plenty of terrorism cases handled around the country -- in Buffalo, in Chicago, in North Carolina. The districts where the suspects or targets resided is generally where they were prosecuted.”

But, he said, indictments of suspects living abroad were usually assigned to the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, which specializes in extraditing them to this country for trial.

Jim Neff, investigations editor for the Seattle Times, said the paper stood behind its report.

Ujaama, a U.S. citizen born James Earnest Thompson, was well known in Seattle and had often worked as a volunteer with various community programs. Indeed, when he appeared at a pretrial hearing in October 2002, U.S. Magistrate Judge John L. Weinberg said: “Ten years ago, even seven years ago, nobody in this room would have predicted that Mr. Ujaama would be sitting where he is today, facing charges of this kind. His background is exemplary.”

But his indictment in August 2002 alleged that he had close ties with Aswat and Hamza, and that the group was planning to start a terrorist training camp in an isolated area near Bly, Ore., and to set up an Al Qaeda-like base in the Pacific Northwest.

According to the indictment, Ujaama changed his name in 1999 and moved to London. He began working on Hamza’s website, which often warned of impending attacks on American interests and scornfully called this country “the United Snakes of America.”

Hamza preached at London’s Finsbury Park mosque, where his congregation included not only Aswat and Ujaama, but also convicted “shoe bomber” Richard Reid, who in December 2001 unsuccessfully attempted to light explosives in his sneakers to bring down a transatlantic passenger jet, and Zacarias Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Al Qaeda operatives in the Sept. 11 terrorist plot.

Ujaama also began collaborating with Hamza and Aswat to “provide facilities in the United States for training of persons interested in violent jihad,” government documents allege. The plan was to build safe houses at the Bly camp, recruit jihadists and “provide actual training in firearms, military and guerrilla tactics.”

The indictment did not mention Aswat by name, referring to him as “unindicted co-conspirator #2.” It described him as being heavily involved with Ujaama in securing the safe houses and firearms.

The charges also stated that Aswat was an “emissary” of the cleric, Hamza, who was identified in the indictment as “unindicted co-conspirator #1.” The government alleged that Hamza sent Aswat to New York on an Air India flight in November 1999.

He then met up with Ujaama in Seattle, and they traveled together to Bly, near the Northern California border.

At Bly, the indictment said, Aswat “inspected the proposed jihad training camp” and “met potential candidates for jihad training.”

He and Ujaama also allegedly “established security for the Bly property through the use of guard patrols and passwords, and they and others participated in firearms training and viewed a video recording in the subject of improvised poisons.”

In February 2000, Aswat allegedly moved for a time to Seattle, where he “expounded on the teachings and writings” of the cleric.

He also allegedly continued to provide “urban tactical training” for future jihadists in the Northwest. The indictment did not indicate when Aswat left Seattle.

But the terrorist camp in Bly never got off the ground, and in the spring of 2002 Aswat became aware of the government’s investigation into Ujaama and “discussed whether he should travel to Seattle to assess the situation.”

It is unclear whether he did so.

As Ujaama’s case proceeded toward trial, Assistant U.S. Atty. Andrew Hamilton told the court in Seattle that the Justice Department’s desire to prosecute Hamza and others was “at the highest levels of government.”

“It’s everybody’s goal to charge and arrest Abu Hamza,” Hamilton said.

Hamza, more so than Aswat, was seen as the bigger prize because of his prominence at the mosque, where he was believed to be fomenting reprisals against the United States.

In April 2003, Ujaama pleaded guilty in Seattle as part of a plea bargain in which he would cooperate with authorities and help them find Aswat and Hamza.

Ujaama was given a two-year sentence in return for admitting guilt to a single felony related to his operation of a website urging donations of money, goods and services to the Taliban in its efforts to defeat the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

“I wish I had not done some of the things I did, or said some of the things I said,” Ujaama told U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein in pleading guilty.

Federal law enforcement officials quickly heralded the deal as sure a way to hunt down other would-be terrorists, such as Aswat and Hamza.

Ujaama, said John McKay, the U.S. attorney in Seattle, “will assist this nation and other nations in the fight against terrorism.”

In Washington, then-Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said prosecutors were pleased with the deal.

“An important part of our war against terrorism is to obtain the cooperation of insiders who have direct knowledge of the activities of dangerous terrorists,” Ashcroft said.

Then, predicting that Ujaama’s assistance would be fruitful, he said, “We expect his cooperation to lead to the arrest of additional terrorists and the disruption of future terrorist activity.”

A Justice Department official said Sunday that Ujaama was moved to New York, where he testified before a federal grand jury investigating Hamza.

In May 2004, Hamza was taken into custody in London by Scotland Yard on a warrant for extradition to the United States.

Within hours of the arrest in London, Ashcroft publicly unveiled an 11-count indictment filed in New York against the cleric, linking him to a 1998 terrorist hostage-taking incident in Yemen and the alleged plan to train jihadists in Oregon.

Hamza, who has one good eye and a steel hook for a hand, is awaiting extradition to New York, with U.S. authorities hoping that process can be completed soon.

But a senior official in Washington said that the U.S. government had yet to announce the arrest and indictment of Aswat in the Oregon scheme or other alleged plots.

There are conflicting reports about his whereabouts; a militant source and an intelligence official in Pakistan told The Times last week that he had been seized in that country, although the Pakistani government had not officially confirmed that. Other reports indicate that he remains free.

But the senior U.S. official emphasized that federal authorities in Seattle, New York and Washington had worked together to try to find Aswat, and thought they had a good head start with Ujaama’s cooperation.

“Look at the Hamza indictment, for one,” the official said. “It’s pretty clear from that who informed on him.”