Suspect in Alleged Airline Plot May Have Link to 9/11 Figure

British and German authorities are investigating a potential link between an alleged plot to bomb U.S.-bound planes and a fugitive in the Sept. 11 attacks, officials said Tuesday.

The lead emerged as British authorities announced an inquiry into suspected diversion of charity funds to militant groups, made a new arrest and conducted 46 searches in connection with the alleged airliner plot.

Investigators are examining possible contacts between an unidentified suspect arrested in London last week and Said Bahaji, a Moroccan German who authorities said was a member of Al Qaeda’s cell in Hamburg, Germany, who fled to Pakistan days before the Sept. 11 hijackers struck.

One of the 24 suspects held here, who are predominantly British citizens of Pakistani descent with alleged ties to a militant network in Pakistan, may have tried to communicate with Bahaji through e-mails to Bahaji’s wife, Nese, who lives in Hamburg, authorities said. The e-mail contacts apparently took place in 2004 and 2005, they said.

“There are indications about contacts of some of the terror suspects to Germany,” said Annette Ziesig, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Interior Ministry. “This is being checked at the moment. We have good and very close contacts with the British authorities. We cannot give more detailed information at the moment in order not to endanger the investigations.”

If there was a relationship between the British suspect and Bahaji, it could suggest that Bahaji remained active and prominent in the Al Qaeda terrorist network, which found refuge in Pakistan and might have played a role in the alleged airplane plot.

“It could be that to the extent that the big fish have fallen, you have little fish who rise,” said a European counter-terrorism official. “The movement has not lost much force.”

Wanted on charges of murder in connection with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bahaji is one of the few surviving members of Al Qaeda’s Hamburg cell who has not been imprisoned or prosecuted.

He was a roommate in Hamburg of Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker, and Ramzi Binalshibh, an imprisoned alleged coordinator of the attacks. Authorities said Bahaji took advantage of his German citizenship to provide logistical support and cover as the conspiracy developed.

On Sept. 4, 2001, authorities said, Bahaji flew to the Pakistani port city of Karachi with three Algerian extremists, joining an exodus of operatives involved in the impending attacks. He then reportedly made his way to an Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. His trail ended there, but he remained in touch with his wife via e-mail, according to trial evidence presented in Germany last year.

In July, German police arrested a Moroccan extremist accused of undergoing explosives training at an Algerian camp and recruiting militants for Iraq. Police said the Moroccan had acted as a conduit for messages between Bahaji and his wife.

An FBI official said U.S. authorities had no specific knowledge of the suspected contact between the accused British extremist and Bahaji. But the official said the FBI and the CIA were hunting for Bahaji and thought he was being sheltered in Pakistan by Al Qaeda operatives.

The FBI official said Bahaji and other Al Qaeda operatives who initially fled to Afghanistan, where U.S. military forces are active, had moved to Pakistan.

In another development involving Pakistan and Germany, British newspapers reported that two suspects being held by Pakistani police in connection with the alleged airliner plot had German contacts, and that one had traveled to Germany before.

Also Tuesday, a British watchdog agency disclosed that it had opened an inquiry into reports that funds raised by a Muslim charity, Crescent Relief, had been diverted by the alleged plotters. The Charity Commission also confirmed that Crescent Relief, based in Ilford, England, had a connection to the family of Rashid Rauf of Birmingham, who is alleged to be a key figure in the case. Pakistani authorities have said Rauf’s arrest in Pakistan spurred the roundup of suspects last week in Britain. The suspects include Rauf’s brother Tayib.

The charity was incorporated in 2000, and its founding directors included businessman Abdul Rauf, now 53, the father of the two suspects, according to documents provided by the Charity Commission. The founders said the goal of the charity was to help “refugees, epidemic and natural disaster victims,” as well as the homeless and drug addicts, the documents said.

Recent news reports in Western and Pakistani media have said that charities collecting funds to help victims of October’s earthquake in Pakistan may have been used to funnel money to militant groups in Pakistan and to the alleged plotters.

Without providing specifics, a Charity Commission spokeswoman said the agency was investigating those allegations.

“The Charity Commission takes the issue of allegations concerning charities and terrorism very seriously,” spokeswoman Grace Money said. “We are aware of the speculation raised in newspapers over the weekend suggesting links between U.K. charities and the recent bomb plot. However, as the regulator for charities in England and Wales, we use our legal powers on the basis of evidence. We are looking into the suggestions that have been made to decide what regulatory action may be required by the commission.”

In Washington, Treasury Department officials said they were helping British and Pakistani authorities trace money believed to have helped finance the alleged plot to see whether any of it came from charity groups or Pakistani militant organizations such as the outlawed Lashkar-e-Taiba and its successor organization, Jamaat ud-Dawa.

The two groups were “quite active” in earthquake relief efforts in Pakistan while plotting to advance their terrorist agendas, Treasury Department officials said. A recent Treasury Department report expressed concern that militants were abusing charity efforts amid “weak to nonexistent government regulation or oversight.”

Teams of British anti-terrorism police took to the streets again Tuesday in a follow-up operation to last week’s raids. They searched 46 locations, including businesses and residences, along with 20 cars in the Thames Valley. The area is about 20 miles from the London suburb of High Wycombe, where several suspects lived.

The targets included two Internet cafes in Slough, a town with a large Muslim population, police said. Lengthy surveillance of the suspects revealed that they tried to avoid detection by communicating from Internet cafes rather than from home computers, a British security official said. Police have identified computers that were used and are reviewing them for evidence, the official said.

The operation also involved the arrest of a suspect in the Thames Valley area, but police disclosed no details about the detainee. In recent days, officials have said the 24 men jailed here, along with as many as 17 held in Pakistan, constituted the major suspects in the case.

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Times staff writers Josh Meyer in Washington and Petra Falkenberg in Berlin contributed to this report.