T4 B18 Ftat Robert Wright Fdr- Entire Contents- Press Reports Re Fbi Special Agent Robert Wright- 1st Pgs Scanned For Reference- Fair Use 681

15. The U.S. Provides Details Of Terror-Financing Web; Defunct Investment Firm In New Jersey Is the Hub; Suspect to Stay in Custody By GLENN R.SIMPSON WALL STREET JOURNAL ALEXANDRIA, Va. -- U.S. prosecutors, seeking to keep a central terrorism suspect behind bars, painstakingly outlined an alleged terror-financing network stretching from New Jersey to Switzerland to Saudi Arabia. The case of Soliman Biheiri has become the spearhead of a two-year investigation into whether Islamic activists and their wealthy Saudi backers assembled an empire of dozens of well-funded businesses and charities in this country to support terrorists or their causes. The Justice Department says those elements converged around Mr. Biheiri, head of a now-defunct New Jersey investment firm who has been charged with immigration fraud and held in U.S. custody since mid-June. Prosecutors last week marshaled bank statements, canceled checks, tax records, wire transfers and incorporation filings to document their contentions about Muslim charities and terrorists working in concert. In a four-hour detention hearing, they described Mr. Biheiri as the U.S. banker for the Muslim Brotherhood, a banned Egyptian movement that seeks to build a global Islamic theocracy and U.S. authorities say spawned both al Qaeda and Hamas. "Basically, the defendant came here as the Muslim Brotherhood's financial toehold in the U.S.," prosecutor Steven Ward said in federal court here, the primary venue for the government's legal war on suspected terrorists. He urged that Mr. Biheiri remain in custody as a flight risk and danger to the community. Lawyers for those under investigation have derided the probe as a dangerous prosecutorial fantasy that has impinged on their clients' civil rights. Mr. Biheiri's lawyer, James Clark, while not disputing most specifics of the government's claims, said there is "not a shred of evidence" that his client supported terrorism. Judge T.E. Ellis III ordered Mr. Biheiri held, saying there was ample evidence he did business with terrorists. Mr. Biheiri, an Egyptian immigrant active in Muslim politics in the U.S., was on the advisory board of a prominent national Islamic lobby called the American MuslirryQouncil. He also ran a Secaucus, N.J., investment firm called BMI Inc., which stands fo^Beit ul MaHor Treasury House. The firm foundered in 1999 after about $2.3 million went missing. Prosecutors are seeking to charge him "with respect to providing money to designated [terrorist] individuals," Mr. Ward said. Investors in BMI, the subject of a Page-One article3 in The Wall Street Journal last November, included Saudi businessman YassinQadi and Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzook, both of whom the U.S. Treasury has listed as "specially designated global terrorists." Prosecutors identified a third BMI investor as Abdullah Awad bin Laden, who BMI partnership records and bank statements show put in more than $500,000. He is a nephew of Osama bin Laden, head of al Qaeda and the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. During the 1990s, Abdullah Awad bin Laden ran the U.S. branch of a Saudi charity called the World Assembly of Muslim Youth. The Federal Bureau of Investigation and private analysts labeled it a suspected terrorist organization; the group says it doesn't support terrorism. Mr. Qadi also says he has no involvement in terrorism. His lawyers say he had only passing involvement with BMI and liquidated his investment in it in 1996. But another company operating from the same office, Kadi International Inc., listed its president in its incorporation papers as Yassin A. Qadi. The Saudi businessman was also a major investor in Ptech, a Boston computer

14 of 38 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2002 American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. ABC News Transcripts SHOW: PRIMETIME LIVE (10:00 PM ET) - ABC December 19, 2002 Thursday

LENGTH: 1692 words HEADLINE: PRIMETIME INVESTIGATION FBI TERRORIST COVER UP BODY: CHARLES GIBSON, ABC NEWS (Off Camera) See if this gets your attention. A rich, Saudi businessman, suspected of funnelling money to Osama Bin Laden, who is also a suspected owner of a company that creates highly sensitive software for the FBI. Or how about this, a Muslim FBI Agent accused of refusing orders to secretly record another Muslim suspected of terrorist connections. Well tonight, two FBI Agents come forward to say if all of that worries you, it should. They put everything at risk to give Chief Investigative Correspondent Brian Ross a disturbing account that the FBI has tried to keep secret. graphics: Primetime Investigation BRIAN ROSS, ABC NEWS (Voice Over) 10:00 last Monday morning in Chicago. This was the day. This was the hour. BRIAN ROSS (CONTINUED) (Voice Over) This was the interview FBI headquarters in Washington feared was coming. Two of the FBI's own. Special Agents Robert Wright(PH) and John Vincent,(PH) breaking ranks. ROBERT WRIGHT, FBI AGENT You can't know the things I know and not go public. BRIAN ROSS (Voice Over) Finally telling the story they say the FBI has tried to keep secret from Congress and the American public. ROBERT WRIGHT September 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit. No doubt about that. Absolutely no doubt about that. BRIAN ROSS (Off Camera) You're an FBI agent and you're saying that about the FBI? ROBERT WRIGHT I know that. Yes. BRIAN ROSS

1 of 38 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2003 News World Communications, Inc. Insight on the News August 4, 2003, Monday

SECTION: THE NATION; Pg. 27 LENGTH: 2484 words HEADLINE: FBI Polarized by 'Wahhabi Lobby'; Critics contend that the FBI's politically correct policy of embracing self-proclaimed "mainstream" Muslim groups is compromising its counterterrorism efforts. BYLINE: By J. Michael Waller, INSIGHT BODY: As FBI agents in the field moved in on a dozen suspected terrorists running recruitment operations in Northern Virginia, a senior FBI official appeared June 26 before a Senate Homeland Security panel and avoided testifying about what senators had called him to discuss. The issues were sponsorship of pro-terrorist ideology, extremist political action and terrorist recruitment financed from Saudi Arabia, supposedly a U.S. ally. Well into the war on terrorism, the FBI is a house divided. On one side, agents are wrapping up terrorist-support networks coast to coast that include radicalized American Muslims bent on unleashing a murderous jihad against their own country. On the other side, in Washington, a culture of political correctness seems to have settled in the bureau's upper management, which some insiders describe as a Clintonlike pandering to the latest favored victim group. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, a favorite self-proclaimed victim has been an aggressive band of Washington-based groups that purport to represent the nation's Muslims and hyphenated Arabs. That constituency is known as the "Wahhabi lobby" for many of its members' alleged ties to Saudi Arabia, whose state religion is considered by many to be an extremist and violent Wahhabi sect of Islam [see '"Wahhabi Lobby' Takes the Offensive," Aug. 5, 2002]. Sources say the FBI has silenced a senior counterterrorism agent, Robert Wright of the Chicago field office, for exposing how senior figures in the bureau blocked investigations of al-Qaeda terror networks inside the United States prior to Sept. 11, and for complaining that a Muslim special agent, Gamel Abdel-Hafiz, refused to wear a wire when questioning terror suspects, allegedly saying, "A Muslim doesn't record another Muslim." Wright's FBI colleague, John Vincent, says he also was called off pre-9/11 cases, and has been speaking hi Wright's stead. Wright is receiving legal counsel from David Schippers, the Chicago attorney who led the House commission to impeach president Bill Clinton [see picture profile, Jan. 1, 2001]. Schippers tells Insight that the Wright case is symptomatic of out-of-control political correctness at the FBI. Meanwhile, senior administration officials tell Insight that FBI Director Robert Mueller was under orders from an unnamed senior White House campaign strategist to appease Muslim and Arab-American groups that have been complaining noisily that federal counterterrorism efforts are impinging on their civil rights. Mueller was widely criticized both inside the bureau and out for addressing the June 2002 national convention of the American Muslim Council [AMC]. An FBI spokesman defended Mueller's appearance on grounds that the AMC was one of the most "mainstream" organizations in Washington. This proved especially embarrassing to the director when, at the very time of the Mueller speech, AMC spokesman Eric Vickers appeared on Fox News and MSNBC and refused, under questioning, to denounce by name terrorist groups such as Hamas, Hezbollah and al-Qaeda.

26 of 38 DOCUMENTS Copyright 2002 National Public Radio (R). All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission. For further information, please contact NPR's Permissions Coordinator at (202) 513-2000. National Public Radio (NPR) SHOW: All Things Considered (8:00 PM ET) - NPR May 29,2002 Wednesday

LENGTH: 1067 words HEADLINE: Chicago FBI agent accuses the FBI of shutting down his investigation into the financial ties between Middle Eastern charity groups in the US and terrorism a year before 9/11 attacks ANCHORS: JOHN YDSTIE; LIANE HANSEN REPORTERS: BARBARA BRADLEY BODY: JOHN YDSTIE, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm John Ydstie. LIANE HANSEN, host: And I'm Liane Hansen. The FBI has announced plans to shift hundreds of agents from traditional crime fighting to counterterrorism activities. The reorganization comes amid mounting external and internal criticism from an agent in Phoenix and, more recently, an agent who investigated Zacarias Moussaoui. Now an FBI agent in the Chicago field office is accusing the FBI of shutting down an investigation that could have led to some of al-Qaeda's money sources. Observers say it would not have stopped 9/11, but it does demonstrate the conflict between tracking terrorists and making prosecutions. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports. BARBARA BRADLEY reporting: A few years ago, Robert Wright began to suspect there were connections between Islamic charities in the US and terrorist attacks abroad. So Wright, who's considered a smart, but bull-headed special agent in the FBI's Chicago office, began to investigate. He started with Hamas, then included other groups. For example, according to two sources, he was running down evidence that a Middle Eastern company in the United States had funnelled money to finance the US Embassy bombings in East Africa. Wright declined to speak on tape, but his lawyer, David Schipper, says his client was on the right path. Mr. DAVID SCHIPPER (Attorney): The key to the terrorism is money. The key to the terrorist activity is the financing of that activity. Bob Wright had established exactly how it was done, and he had the knowledge and the ability to stop it at its source. And that's what he wasn't permitted to do. BRADLEY: Initially, Wright claims, he was on his own. Wright is suing the FBI on another matter, and he says in a court filing that he had to buy his own computer and other equipment because the FBI wouldn't. But eventually, the case drew support from the bureau and from prosecutors.

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May 21,2003, 8:45 a.m.

Trails Lead to Saudis A Virginia terror probe continues. By Matthew Epstein

March 2002, Federal terrorism investigators descended upon a group of I nSaudi-backed executives operating out of northern Virginia. The government hauled away truckloads of files and computer hard drives from the "SAAR Network," a web of dozens of related companies with interlocking officers, directors, and corporate headquarters. The Treasury Department suspected the group was laundering money for al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. Now over a year after the raids, many are asking whether the Justice Department will hand down indictments or clear the targets' names. While the government has revealed very little about the lengthy probe, documents recently made public in terrorism trials across the nation shed new light on the subjects of this ongoing terrorism investigation. At the center is SAAR Executive Yaqub Mirza. Mirza has been publicly linked to the alleged financing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad through his organizations International Institute of Islamic Thought and Safa Trust. He was also a director of Ptech, the Boston-based software company raided by a terrorism task force last year for its connections with designated al Qaeda financier Yasin Kadi. Mirza has denied wrongdoing. In light of the new documents, investigators are revisiting the financial activities of two SAAR affiliated Islamic charities, the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), and its sister organization Sana-Bell, Inc. IIRO, SANA-BELL & THE GOLDEN CHAIN

Red flags have been raised by the fact that Sana-Bell's Washington, D.C. branch was founded by two known al Qaeda financiers, Saleh Kamel and Ibrahim Afandi. Yaqub Mirza is also listed as a founding trustee. Kamel and Afandi are members of the Golden Chain, a group of wealthy Gulf patrons that donated millions of dollars to Osama bin Laden. Former al Qaeda operatives have explained how Golden Chain financiers would donate funds earmarked for bin Laden by way of the Saudi evangelical charity the Muslim World League. Both Sana-Bell and IIRO are operational arms of the Muslim World League. The Golden Chain was established at the time of al Qaeda's formation in 1988;

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