Terror Suspect Linked to Hamburg Cell

Police have linked a suspect in a recently dismantled Al Qaeda cell in Italy to the Hamburg terrorist group that plotted the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, according to Italian authorities.

As a result, Italian police are working with German and U.S. counterparts to follow the Sept. 11 leads and piece together a case that exemplifies the interconnected world of Al Qaeda.

In late March, police arrested six suspects in three Italian cities and charged them with recruiting Muslims for terrorist training camps in Iraq. Those camps, operated by Ansar al Islam, were cited by the United States as one of the reasons for going to war in Iraq. The camps were recently overrun by U.S. and Kurdish troops.

Last weekend, police arrested a seventh suspect in the Italian case, a Moroccan named Mohamed Daki. Detectives have determined that Daki once lived in Hamburg, where he was questioned by investigators after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks because of his ties to the Hamburg cell, according to a judicial order obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Daki, 38, admitted he knew several Hamburg plotters, including Ramzi Binalshibh, the Yemeni being held in U.S. custody as a key planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the April 4 court document. Daki told Italian police he let Binalshibh use his address to register with German immigration authorities.

“In particular Mohamed Daki had strong ties to the notorious Ramzi Binalshib[h], an operational leader of Al Qaeda and planner of the Sept. 11 attacks,” the judicial order stated.

Daki’s passport contains a visa for the United States obtained in July 1999, when preparation for the Sept. 11 attacks had begun. It is not clear whether Daki traveled to the United States, Italian police said.

Although German police interrogated Daki on Sept. 30, 2001, they did not arrest him. Italian police are investigating him thoroughly because of his suspected contact with significant Al Qaeda figures involved in the Sept. 11 case and more recent plots, according to the indictment.

“He could lead to interesting things,” an Italian law enforcement official said.

Daki moved from Hamburg to the Italian city of Reggio Emilia and resurfaced last month in phone calls intercepted by Italian anti-terrorism police conducting surveillance on Al Qaeda suspects in Milan, Parma and Cremona. The suspects allegedly enlisted Daki as a specialist in document forgery to help one of the members of their group, Cabdallah Ciise, a Somali who had arrived from London in search of fake papers, according to the court document.

It was the contact between Daki and Ciise that caused Italian police to abruptly wrap up their yearlong investigation of the network involved in recruitment for the terrorist camps in Kurd-controlled northern Iraq. Detectives were intrigued on March 23 when telephone intercepts caught suspected leaders in Syria, the network’s hub for funds and recruits en route to Iraq, describing the Somali in respectful terms and telling associates in Milan to do all they could to help him, according to court documents.

Thinking that a big fish had washed into their net, Italian investigators consulted with U.S. intelligence agents about Ciise, according to authorities. The U.S. agents identified Ciise as a significant Al Qaeda financier who funded a terrorist cell that attacked Israeli tourists in Mombasa, Kenya, in November.

The U.S. information described “the role played by Ciise in the raising and transfer of money from Great Britain and Somalia (via Dubai) for the Al Qaeda terrorist network,” the court document stated. “The same information explains that these transactions were essential for an imminent attack against Western targets in Africa by a terror cell already under scrutiny in the investigation of the attack on the Paradise Hotel in Mombasa on Nov. 28, 2002.”

The Mombasa car-bomb attack killed 12 people and wounded 80 others. It involved a Somali terrorist group linked to Al Qaeda. Two of the terrorists who died in the explosion have been identified as an Egyptian and a Somali, according to the documents.

Determined not to let Ciise get away, Italian police shadowed him aggressively from the moment he arrived in Milan by train March 24. His imperious behavior befitted his reputed rank in the organization, according to the documents. He snapped at the Milan operatives that they were “sleeping on the job.” He complained during phone calls to Syria that the men in Milan were slow, disorganized and might be infiltrated by spies.

In response, a caller told him not to worry because the network had enlisted Mohamed Daki, a trusted “brother,” to provide Ciise with fraudulent documents he needed urgently for himself and others, according to the judicial order.

“No fear. I want you to know that Daki is a specialist in these things,” the caller told Ciise. “Be calm because he knows exactly where to prepare them.”

Police watched and listened as Daki made the two-hour train ride from Reggio Emilia to Milan and met with Ciise at a mosque on Viale Jenner. They traveled together to Reggio Emilia and returned, looking and sounding increasingly jittery.

On March 30, Daki’s telephone conversation revealed that he had spotted the surveillance by police. The suspects prepared to flee Italy, according to the transcript.

“For two days we had enough,” Daki said. “But yesterday we confirmed it: photographers and those who go around on foot. Last night I saw outside my place those cars that you know about.”

The man on the other end of the line gave him precise instructions: “Listen carefully. Wait for my call.... Go to France and wait for orders. Then you keep going. I hope that God makes things easy for you. Stay calm; don’t panic.”

But Daki, who is believed to have trained in Al Qaeda’s Afghanistan camps, was rounded up with the other suspects. They are accused of belonging to a terrorist group, dealing in fraudulent documents and smuggling illegal immigrants.

Then, according to the indictment, police stumbled onto Daki’s Hamburg connection.

Daki’s wife lives in Italy, and he came to Italy from Germany to take advantage of an immigration amnesty program, according to authorities. He told arresting officers he had studied electrical engineering at the same Hamburg technical university as several of the Sept. 11 hijackers and plotters.

Daki was one of a number of Moroccans and Syrians close to the Hamburg cell who have come under investigation. Some have been arrested and charged, while others are fugitives, suspects or have been cleared.

Before Binalshibh, the suspected coordinator of the Sept. 11 attacks, moved in with lead hijacker Mohamed Atta, Binalshibh’s address in Hamburg from Dec. 3, 1997, to Nov. 5, 1998, was the same as Daki’s, according to the documents. Daki told German police he let Binalshibh register himself at the address as a favor for dealing with the German immigration bureaucracy. But he asserted Binalshibh had not lived with him and that they knew each other from a mosque, according to documents.

Ciise and Daki had the same two Hamburg phone numbers in their possession when they were arrested, according to the documents. One is the number of a Moroccan associate in Hamburg of Binalshibh and Said Bahaji, a fugitive accused of helping plan the Sept. 11 attacks, according to the documents.

Although Daki was initially discarded as a suspect by German police, Italian police said they intend to investigate him thoroughly because of his reappearance as a prominent figure in Al Qaeda.

The potential danger of the terrorist network comes across during a conversation recorded in a holding cell of the Milan anti-terrorism police on April 1. Ciise, enraged from his arrest, and another suspect recited the Koran and a jihad hymn against Americans, cursed the U.S. war on Iraq and apparently warned of terrorist attacks to come, according to the transcript in the indictment.

“When they arrested me and put me in the car and pointed the pistol at me, they told me they would investigate me and also ask the Americans about me,” Ciise snarled, according to the transcript. “I told them they were enemies of God, to get their hands off me ...”

“When they kill it’s fine, but when we say we are going to Iran or Syria they want to know what we are doing,” said his Egyptian cellmate, known as Merai, moments later. “Now they have put Iraq in the middle, the American and Israeli dogs, God curse them and their allies, including the Italian government.... Very soon they will have news, a beautiful thing to see ... and they will pay because they are dogs.”

Most conversations among alleged Al Qaeda members intercepted by police take place during phone calls, and suspects often talk in code and generalities. But during the conversation in the cell, the suspects described themselves as “fighters.”

Merai said: The Italians “like life. I want to be a martyr; I live for jihad.” And Ciise confided that he was worried that his cell phone would lead police to friends who were international fugitives, according to the transcript.

“I’m worried about the damn telephones,” Ciise said. “It could be a huge problem because those who are waiting for me ... are wanted by most of the secret services.”

The attorney for Ciise and Merai said his clients did not commit a crime under Italian law even if it is proved they have ties to a network that sent fighters to battle U.S. forces in Iraq.

“Sending someone to fight in Iraq, whether against the Americans or the English, is not certainly terrorist activity; once these were known as partisans,” said the lawyer, Sandro Clementi. “As for the rest, it’s just dialogue among citizens who certainly don’t love the United States or England, but that’s clearly not a crime.”