3 in Custody May Have Supported Bomb Suspect

3 in Custody May Have Supported Bomb Suspect
By WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM and SCOTT SHANE
Copyright by Reuters
Published: May 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/14/nyregion/14terror.html?hp


Three Pakistani men taken into custody during a series of raids across the Northeast as part of the investigation into the failed Times Square car bombing may have provided money to the man who has admitted carrying out the unsuccessful attack, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said Thursday.

Mr. Holder said it was unclear if the men knew that the funds they provided were going to be used for an act of terrorism — one that Obama administration officials have said was aided and directed by the Pakistani Taliban. As of late Thursday, they were being detained on civil immigration violations and had not been charged with a crime.

Several people briefed on the case said that Faisal Shahzad, the naturalized Pakistani immigrant who the authorities say drove the crude car bomb into Times Square, traveled to the suburban Long Island community of Ronkonkoma in the days before the failed May 1 attack to collect several thousand dollars in cash, some of which he used to finance his plan.

But the people could not say whether the person who provided that money was one of the men taken into custody, and it was unclear whether the person was aware of what Mr. Shahzad intended to do with the money.

Two of the men taken into custody in the early morning raids were picked up after one of two searches in the Boston area, part of a sweep in which Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and local police officers executed six search warrants there, in New Jersey and on Long Island. A third man was taken into custody in Maine.

Mr. Holder called the development “a significant step” when he was asked for details about the three men.

He said the men were connected to Mr. Shahzad, 30, but investigators were “trying to determine exactly what the nature of the connection was.”

“There’s at least a basis to believe that one of the things that they did was to provide him with funds,” Mr. Holder said. “And so we are trying to trace back to see what exactly was the nature of those transactions, what was the purpose of the sharing of that — of those moneys.”

Statements released by the office of the United States attorney in Manhattan and the Boston F.B.I. office said the searches “do not relate to any known immediate threat to the public or active plot against the United States” and were undertaken based on evidence that was gathered in the investigation that came after the car bomb attempt.

Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in Manhattan, whose office is prosecuting Mr. Shahzad, said at a news conference that Mr. Shahzad, who has been providing information to agents and prosecutors since his arrest late on the night of May 3, had continued to do so. “Faisal Shahzad is still cooperating and still being interviewed by agents,” said Mr. Bharara, who was conducting a news conference in White Plains on an unrelated case.

Mr. Bharara added that agents and detectives from the Joint Terrorism Task Force “are still getting all the information we can in regard to any and all associates he may have.”

Mr. Shahzad, who has been charged with trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in the Times Square bomb attempt, has waived his right to remain silent and his right to a speedy appearance before a judge each day since his arrest, Mr. Bharara said.

“Mr. Shahzad will be brought to court at the appropriate time,” Mr. Bharara said.

The five-count criminal complaint charging Mr. Shahzad says he admitted driving a sport utility vehicle packed with a crude explosive device into Times Square; it also says he told federal authorities that he was trained to build bombs in Pakistan.

Federal authorities on Thursday did not expect to charge anyone else with terrorism, according to the official briefed on the investigation.

Also on Thursday, a senior American official confirmed news reports that at least one of a dozen people arrested in Pakistan following the attempted bombing had told investigators that he worked with Mr. Shahzad as he sought explosives training in Waziristan. The Washington Post reported on Thursday night, however, that there were inconsistencies between Mr. Shahzad’s story and the account of the Pakistani suspect.

Agents conducted searches Thursday in the Boston suburbs of Watertown and Brookline, and at two locations on Long Island, one in Centereach and another in Shirley. Agents from the Philadelphia F.B.I. office conducted searches in Camden and Cherry Hill, N.J., according to a spokesman for that office, J. J. Klaver.

Much remained unclear about the actions, including precisely why the warrants were executed and what evidence the federal authorities were seeking.

At one of the homes searched on Long Island, Mohammad Iqbal, a limousine driver in New York City, said seven or eight F.B.I. agents arrived at his two-story red brick home in Shirley at 6 a.m. and stayed until 11:30 a.m. They questioned him about whether he had any knowledge of the Times Square plot. They also asked about an old friend of his: Mohammad Younus, the target of the search in Centereach.

Mr. Younus had lived with him for “a couple of months” during a fight with his wife four years ago, Mr. Iqbal said. They had become friends when they worked together at a 7-Eleven. He did not think Mr. Younus was involved with the plot and said he was still confused as to why the agents had come to his house.

“I answered all their questions,” he said, adding that the agents were polite and respectful and did not take anything with them from his home.

The searches in New Jersey were focused on the same man, whose home and business, a printing press sales company, were both searched, according to one person briefed on the matter.

The house that was searched in Watertown is across the street from the local middle school and next door to a housing development for the elderly on a tree-lined street of mostly two-family homes. Neighbors said about 15 to 20 F.B.I. agents with guns drawn approached the house between 6:15 and 6:30 a.m. Sirens blared, helicopters circled overhead and agents yelled, “F.B.I.! Don’t move!” and “F.B.I.! Put your hands up!”

“When I looked out the window, they all had their guns pointed at the house,” said Barbara Lacerra, who lives across the street.

Later, agents wearing raid jackets from Immigration and Customs Enforcement could be seen leading a handcuffed man to an unmarked car.

“They had him in handcuffs and shackles,” Mrs. Lacerra said. “He was very calm and had his head down.”

She said she also saw agents take computers out of the house.

Another neighbor, who would not give his name, said two men “with connections to Pakistan” had lived in the top floor of the house for a few months.

The neighbor said he had seen law enforcement officials conducting surveillance at the house for about a week. The men who live there are auto mechanics, the neighbor said, and often tinkered with a Honda in a driveway behind the house. The neighbor said one of the men works at a Mobil station in Brookline — one of the locations of the searches.


Reporting was contributed by Charlie Savage from Washington; Al Baker, Kitty Bennett and Kareem Fahim from New York; Karen Zraick from Centereach, N.Y.; Nate Schweber from White Plains; and Katie Zezima from Watertown, Mass.