Fugitive on FBI list arrested near Chicago

A Middle Eastern man whose name appears on the FBI list of people wanted for questioning in the terrorism investigation was arrested outside Chicago, the FBI said today.

Nabil Al-Marabh, 34, was arrested Wednesday night in suburban Burbank at a convenience store and was being questioned today, said Kathleen McChesney, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago office.

She said he was being held on a U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service request and a warrant issued in Massachusetts for a probation violation. She said agents believe he is the same man wanted on the Massachusetts warrant and are still trying to determine whether he is the same person whose name appears on the FBI’s “watch list.”

“We have been working on that since last night and we still have a lot of work to do,” McChesney said.

This morning, an FBI spokeswoman in Chicago, Mary Muha, had said that the man under arrest was the same person on the FBI’s list. But McChesney said this afternoon that it had not been established that the man in custody and the one on the list were the same person.

Al-Marabh was living in suburban Hickory Hills, not far from the convenience store in Burbank, officials said.

The owner of the convenience store, 7 Days Food & Liquor, Walid Beitouni, said Al-Marabh had worked there several days as a clerk.

Beitouni said he was stunned Wednesday night when FBI agents entered the store with guns drawn and arrested Al-Marabh. He said he asked what the clerk had done and was told by an agent: “He’s involved in something you don’t want to know about.”

Beitouni said Al-Marabh had told him he was living with an uncle nearby and shown him a Canadian drivers license. He said the man had been asking for a job for several weeks.

Only minutes before the FBI arrived on the scene, Al-Marabh had said that agents might be looking for him, Beitouni said. Beitouni said he then asked him to leave, saying he wanted no trouble with the law.

Earlier, federal officials had said the arrest had taken place in the nearby suburb of Justice. Police Chief Paul Wasik of Justice said his men had taken part in a stakeout in connection with the case but that the arrest was in Burbank. He declined to give additional details.

Federal agents had been looking for the Al-Marabh on the watch list since at least Monday. That day, they raided a Detroit house with Al-Marabh’s name on the mailbox and arrested three men after discovering false visas, passports and other ID, as well as what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line.

The FBI list that Al-Marabh is on includes suspects, potential associates of the suspects, and potential witnesses related to the attacks, the FBI said.

While agents were in Detroit on Monday, Al-Marabh was in Three Oaks, in the southwestern corner of Michigan near the Indiana state line, getting a duplicate driver’s license, state authorities said.

In December, Al-Marabh pleaded guilty to assault and battery with a dangerous weapon -- a knife -- in Boston. He stabbed his roommate in the knee during an argument in May 2000.

“If this wasn’t America, I’d kill you,” Al-Marabh said before stabbing Arafat Abjib, 32, according to court documents.

He received a suspended sentence of six months, but he failed to comply with the terms of his probation when he did not show up for a meeting. On March 15, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

During the raid in Detroit on Monday, federal agents found a cache of documents and arrested Karim Koubriti, 23, Ahmed Hannan, 33, and Farouk Ali-Haimoud, 21, on charges of having false immigration papers. The men were identified as resident aliens from Morocco and Algeria.

Agents also found a planner with handwriting in Arabic, according to court papers. The planner included information about an American base in Turkey, the “American foreign minister,” and Alia Airport in Jordan, the FBI said.

Investigators also found what appeared to be a diagram of an airport flight line, including aircraft and runways, according to the court document, which did not identify the airport.

Hannan and Koubriti briefly worked as dishwashers for an airline catering company, LSG Sky Chefs, near the Detroit airport between May and June, the company said. More recently, they worked for Technicolor in Livonia, putting together cardboard boxes for shipping DVDs and videos.

Al-Marabh lived from at least 1989 to 2000 in Massachusetts, and worked for Boston Cab Co., according to state driver’s license records.

All four men hold chauffeur’s licenses in Michigan, according to state records. Al-Marabh holds a commercial driver’s license and is certified to transport hazardous materials. Koubriti and Al-Marabh also hold commercial driving license endorsements allowing them to drive trucks and other large vehicles.