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Yemeni arrested in Michigan after terror allegation tipDefendant targeted because of ethnicity, lawyer says
From Kevin Bohn
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Yemeni native living in Michigan was arrested last week after his former brother-in-law called New York authorities to say the man was "getting ready to bomb you guys," government authorities said Tuesday. Mohamed Nasser Alajji, who lives in Hamtramck, Michigan, was charged with Social Security fraud after authorities discovered he had applied for two different Social Security numbers. Alajji was arrested last week after his former brother-in-law, Fakrudin Mallahi, called the New York Police Department twice alerting it that the man was possibly planning a terrorist attack, according to a U.S. Attorney's statement in support of keeping Alajji in custody. In those calls, according to prosecutors, Mallahi made the bombing allegation and stated that an al Qaeda attack was coming in a couple of days in Michigan and was going to be carried out by Alajji. The former brother-in-law described Alajji as a fundamentalist, who is ready to die. Alajji appeared in U.S. District Court in Detroit Monday for a detention hearing, but the issue of whether he will be released on bond was delayed until another hearing on Friday. Attorney Nabih Ayad, Alajji's attorney told CNN that his client is only being charged with illegally having two Social Security cards. He also said Alajii, who has been in the country since 1995, has a clean work record in five years of employment and denies that his client is a terrorist. When he was arrested, Alajji denied he obtained two different Social Security numbers in 1995. Government prosecutors say Alajji, the son of a wealthy Yemeni businessman, is in the United States legally as a resident alien. The government also received tips from an informant about Alajii's Yemeni links and other background. Ayad called the informants "highly suspect" and asked the judge at the Monday hearing to produce the brother-in-law and the informant so he could cross cross-examine them. After Alajii's arrest last Friday, authorities obtained a search warrant for his house. The government said it found numerous documents and "literally thousands of audio tapes, which appear to be in Arabic, of discussions which concern topics mainly discussed and supported by those who are adherents to more extremist sects of Islam." Also recovered was a letter from what the government calls an apparent spiritual or religious leader in Yemen. Officials say a preliminary translation of the letter says it appears to be answers to questions posed by Alajji in a prior communication. "The most significant answer concerned a response to a question that Alajji had apparently put forth asking about the propriety of killing oneself in a martyr action using explosives," the government statement said. Ayad said he hasn't seen or heard the tapes to judge whether the allegations are true, but insists there could be an innocent religious explanation for the presence of the tapes. He said the ownership of such tapes "doesn't make you anti-American." Government officials saying there is a continuing investigation of Alajji and his background. This is not the first time Alajji has come into contact with the FBI. In October of 2001 a representative of an auto parts manufacturing company employing Alajji called the FBI saying he had just quit his job. On the day he quit his job, according to government officials, Alajji left a drawing on a work table at his company apparently depicting the burning of the World Trade Center towers. Alajji was interviewed by the FBI on October 4, 2001 and told agents he was the partner in a trucking business known as Shoharta, Inc.
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