Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Lakhani case — more than meets eye

PV VIVEKANAND

THERE IS much more than meets the eye in the recent arrest of three people on charges of conspiring to supply weapons to stage terrorist attacks against the US.
If anything, it appears now that it was a case of a carefully charted plot going wrong at the last minute, with the directors wringing their hand ruefully that their hopes of laying hands on "real terrorists" seeking "real guns" having been frustrated by a premature media disclosure.
Hemant Lakhani, 64, a British national of Indian origin, American Yehuda Abraham, 75. and Moinuddeen Ahmed Hameed, 38, believed to be a Malaysian national, were arrested on Aug.11 after an 18-month "sting" operation staged by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in co-ordination with Russian and British intelligence.
The first speculation when the story of the arrest broke was that they were affiliated with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network. Since then, however, reports have said that the FBI could not come up with any evidence to link Lakhani with Al Qaeda, and that he was only trying to make a fast buck by attempting to buy and sell missiles.
Some reports in the British press threw doubts on assertions that he was an arms merchant and suggested instead that, in view of his heavy indebtedness as a textile merchant, he was easily lured into the sting operation involving purported arms sales.
Another account suggested that the FBI could not complete the sting operation and net the alleged terrorist contacts of Lakhani and his "associates" Abraham and Hameed when the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) broke the story prematurely.
Since then, however, American media has reported that administration officials were leaving out key facts and exaggerating the significance of the alleged plot to smuggle a shoulder-launched missile into the United States
According to law enforcement officials quoted by ABCNEWS, Lakhani had no contacts in Russia to buy the missiles before
the sting and had no known criminal record for arms dealing,
"Here we have a sting operation on some kind of small operator . . . who's bought one weapon when actually, on the gray and black market, hundreds of such weapons change hands," said military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer.
Court documents show much of the case is based on the government's key co-operating witness, an "informant " seeking lenient treatment on federal drug charges, officials told ABCNEWS.
The "informant," who is identified only as "CW" in the indictment unsealed at a New Jersey court, was the first person who led the government to Lakhani. He is believed to be of Indian sub-continental origin since, according to the indictment, Lekhani and "CW" spoke in Urdu and Hindi.
The missile shipped into the New York area from Russia last month was not a real missile — just a mockup  — also arranged entirely by the government.
US officials insisted that the case would show that Lakhani went along with the scheme willingly and was not entrapped. But the question remains whether any of this would have happened if the government had not set it up.
According to the indictment, the story began three months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
A summary of the nine-page indictment compiled by the Philadelphia Inquirer says:
In late 2001, Lakhani approached the (FBI) informant, CW, who was pretending to be a conduit for "radical" Somalis.
Their first significant meeting was on Jan.17, 2002, in the Newark area. As would be the case in most of the more than 150 conversations they would have in the next 18 months, they spoke primarily in Hindi or Urdu.
And, as in virtually all those cases, the FBI was listening.
Lakhani was the first to broach the subject of weapon sales. According to the indictment he bragged that he could procure antiaircraft guns and missiles.
CW said he wanted to buy one anti-aircraft missile, then more later. The two agreed to split the commission on future sales.
Besides business, they also talked politics, documents show, with Lakhani saying Bin Laden "did a good thing" on Sept.11, 2001.
In April 2002, the two met again at a New Jersey hotel, where CW said his people wanted to buy a shoulder-fired missile.
"It can be done," Lakhani allegedly said, emphasising that he wanted the Somalis to know he was "a serious businessman."
The FBI informant said he wanted the missiles for "jihad" and "a plane."
According to the affidavit, Lakhani replied: "The Americans are b....s."
Lakhani said he understood CW's desire to acquire the weapon by the first anniversary of the Sept.11 attacks.
They missed that deadline, but continued to work the deal, meeting on Sept.17, 2002, at a hotel at Newark Liberty International Airport, where they talked price and customs complications.
At one point, CW pointed to passenger jets taking off and landing at the airport. Lakhani allegedly indicated he understood that airplanes were the intended target and said: "Make one explosion … to shake the economy."
In the coming weeks, the men exchanged faxes with technical information — target distance, calibre, missile weight, warhead weight etc.
In October, a third man entered the picture. Unidentified in court documents, this man, based in London, called the FBI informant on Lakhani's behalf and told him to gather a down-payment in $100 bills. He gave the informant the first name of his New York contact, gem dealer Yehuda Abraham, who will identify himself by producing a $1 bill with the serial number F83616063J.
On Oct. 16, CW met with Abraham, who showed him the $1 bill with the proper serial number. The informant gave Abraham the $30,000 down payment, which he counted then and there.
In November, the informant and Lakhani spoke again by phone. This time, Lakhani lamented that his task was "very dangerous" and "not very easy," especially given heightened US security.
The FBI informant suggested that he simply wire the next deposit to the supplier's account.
"No," Lakhani replied, according to documents. "You will get caught. Try to save your skin. … This business is getting so dangerous. No one has the guts to do it. … I won't do anything if it's risky."
In March 2003, after several nervous fax exchanges, the informant wired $56,000 as final payment.
Lakhani soon called to say the missile would be shipped from St.Petersburg, Russia. The lading bill would say "spare parts."
On July 12, the FBI informant flew to Moscow to meet Lakhani and finalise the sale. Two days later, they met with two arms dealers — in fact, two undercover Russian officers — who showed Lakhani the purported shoulder-fired, Igla portable anti-aircraft missile.
Lakhani did not know it was a non-working replica.
The two men then travelled to the port in St. Petersburg to see the missile off. Just before the ship left, Lakhani allegedly broached the idea of selling 50 more surface-to-air missiles, and mentioned his desire to acquire tons of C-4 plastic explosive.
The phony missile arrived at the Port of Baltimore, then made its way to Newark, an official involved in the case said.
On Aug.11, Lakhani met the FBI informant at the Wyndham Hotel in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He came to confirm that the missile had reached the Newark area, and he also planned to discuss the 50-missile deal and the C-4.
Meanwhile, in Manhattan's diamond district, Abraham met with Hameed, who had just flown in from Malaysia. Hameed allegedly expected to help collect $500,000 as a down payment for the next 50 missiles.
Abraham and Hameed were waiting to count the money.
That never happened. The three were arrested later that day.
Hameed was holding the $1 bill.
From subsequent reports, the role of Abraham and Hameed seemed to have been limited to dealing with the financial side of the "deal."
In London, people who knew Lakhani said he was operating from an area near Oxford Street in the West End of London until his clothing business collapsed three years ago. They said it was difficult to believe that Lakhani, a Hindu, would collaborate with Al Qaeda.
A native of Gujarat in India, Lakhani lived in Mumbai's Ghatkopar suburb until the mid-80s when he migrated to the UK. His family is said to have been killed in a motor accident and he was reported to have remarried. That wife was said to have been with him when he was arrested in New York.

Weak argument

Following their arrest, US Attorney Christopher Christie has claimed that Lakhani was involved with terrorists who want to kill Americans.
"There is no question that Lakhani was sympathetic to the beliefs of those who are trying to do damage to our country," Christie said after the court hearing last week where Lakhani was ordered held without bail.
"He knew the arms dealing he was engaging in was being engaged in an attempt to kill American citizens and to try and shake the stability of our economy. Lakhani was a knowing, willing and anxious participant," he said.

"He, on many occasions, in recorded conversations (with undercover American intelligence agents), referred to Americans as 'b......ds' [and] Osama Bin Laden as a hero," said Christie.
But does that indicate that he was selling missiles to terrorists?
That is a question that the US intelligence agencies hope to establish during Lakhani's trial.
The clinch will be evident if the US authorities insist on a "closed-door" trial for Lakhani and also use the special legal provisions which allow the prosecutors to argue their case without having to produce the evidence to the defence lawyer.


Media ruckus


In Britain, meanwhile, the BBC is standing firm after it was accused of wrecking the operation because it ended up netting only Lakhani.
The Newsweek magazine said the US officials were "fuming" that the BBC's leak "may have blown a rare opportunity to penetrate al Qaeda's arms-buying network."
According to the report, the FBI's true intention had been to catch Lakhani hoping that he might lead them to real terrorists trying to buy real weapons. But the assertion has raised eyebrows since there has never been any trace of any link between Lakhani and extremist groups. The arrest of Lakhani was to remain a closely guarded secret.
The BBC's Tom Mangold seemed to have forced the FBI hand by planning to report the arrest, including a now-discredited detail that the smuggling of an SA-18 missile was part of a terror plot to shoot down Air Force One, the presidential aircraft.
News of a British terror arrest, and a possible plot to strike Air Force One, was flying round Washington well before it was first broadcast on the BBC.
The ABC network sent out an internal "news flash" at 4.22pm Washington time, more than half an hour before the BBC was first due to broadcast the story on the 10 o'clock news bulletin in Britain, according to Mangold.
However, ABC denied breaking the story, saying it was tipped off to the arrest when it learned that BBC reporters were calling US officials for confirmation of the arrest.

(With input from The Philadelphia Inquirer/Knight Ridder Newspapers).