Saturday, June 05, 2004

Khans

Compare the last names of the two Pakistani fellows in these two respective stories:
From MSNBC:

More than a year before 9/11, a Pakistani-British man told the FBI an incredible tale: that he had been trained by bin Laden’s followers to hijack airplanes and was now in America to carry out an attack. The FBI questioned him for weeks, but then let him go home, and never followed up. Now, the former al-Qaida insider is talking.

In March, 2000, Niaz Khan said he was down and out, waiting tables in a curry house north of London, overwhelmed by gambling debts and increasingly drawn to the message of a radical local imam. The imam extolled Osama bin Laden and the rewards of dying for jihad.
Then, one night, outside a casino in Manchester, England, Khan said two mysterious men approached him. “First they say, ‘We can help you,’" recalls Khan. "I say, ‘How can you help me?’ Say, ‘OK, come sit in car.’ Said ‘Do you heard Osama name’?”

Khan, now 30, said the men told him they were working on behalf of Osama bin Laden, knew all about his background and gambling debts — information presumably gleaned from his fellow mosque members — and offered to teach him the ways of jihad.

They gave Khan several thousand dollars and flew him to Lahore, Pakistan, where he waited for instructions in a local hotel. He says that bin Laden’s followers then drove him, blindfolded, to a nearby safe house.
And this recent story from Louisiana:
When Mohammad Jamal Khan pleaded guilty to trying to evade the requirement that large cash transactions be reported to banks and the government, federal prosecutors added an unusual caveat to his plea agreement: There would be no immunity from possible prosecution in the future for crimes relating to Sept. 11.

Khan, a Pakistani national, admitted wiring $9,999 to a bank account in Pakistan in 1997. It was part of efforts by another man to get $50,000 overseas, prosecutors said.

"In no case does the U.S. Attorney... agree that there will be no prosecution of the defendant for any crimes concerning the hijacking of any airline or attack on any building or death that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001," said one paragraph in Khan's 2002 plea agreement. "The U.S. Attorney is simply not aware of the involvement by the defendant in these crimes at this time."

* * *
Looks like the latter Khan skipped town and one of the witnesses against him suddenly became deathly ill:
A dentist who claims he met three of the Sept. 11 hijackers in Shreveport one year before the attacks has mysteriously fallen ill and is on life support.

Dr. David Graham was driving back to Shreveport from Houston on Saturday night when he became sick. A friend said Graham began suffering organ failure and medical tests show possible poisoning. He is hospitalized in Houston.

Graham is trying to publish a book that claims meetings with the hijackers and another Middle Eastern man who is a federal fugitive here.

Mike Sledge, a friend of Graham, has a manuscript of Graham's book, "The Graham Report: The true story of three 9-11 hijackers who were reported to the FBI 10 months before 9-11." In it, Graham claims he met the hijackers at a home in Shreveport in September 2000 and thought they were plotting an attack on Barksdale Air Force Base. He said he reported them to the FBI.

* * *

Graham also knew Jamal Khan, a Bossier City man who was convicted of trying to hide his wiring of $9,999 to his native Pakistan.
* * *
Graham was scheduled to testify against Khan at a deportation hearing that was postponed because of a crowded docket. That hearing had not been held when Khan skipped town after federal authorities moved to put him back in jail for violating probation on the financial crime conviction.
Coincidence? Who knows.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I happen to know Jamal Khan personally - I used to attend church at Haughton Bapt. Temple with him, and I even made the mistake of loaning him money (no, he never repaid the loan). I have spoken to deputy US Marshal Chris Turner on several occasions, and perhaps there is another player involved in this that most people don't know about... I am just now learning of some of the things he was apparently involved in. I would love to hear from anyone with any interest in this. Please e-mail me at foxxkids@bellsouth.net - I probably will not check this blog area again, so please send me an e-mail if you want to talk about this further.

3:49 AM  

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