Suspect charged in Oregon camp plot
NEW YORK – A British citizen with alleged ties to the July 7 suicide bombers in London earlier tried to set up a terrorist training camp in Oregon, according to court documents unsealed Monday.
Federal prosecutors accuse Haroon Rashid Aswat, 30, with conspiring to provide material support to terrorism in the United States beginning in 1999.
Aswat was taken into custody in Zambia last month in connection with the London bombings. British officials want to question him about 20 phone calls reportedly made on his South African cell phone to some of the four bombers who killed 52 people in the London attack, Zambian officials say.
The suspect was brought back to London over the weekend, and a judge on Monday ordered him to remain there until Thursday pending an extradition request from U.S. authorities.
Aswat’s lawyer, Hossein Zahir, indicated his client would challenge the extradition.
“He wishes to stress that he has nothing to hide,” Zahir told the court. “He denies any suggestion that he’s a terrorist or engaged in any terrorist activity.”
The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined comment.
The complaint, filed under seal June 20, closely tracks the indictments of James Ujaama, a Seattle man who the government said first identified property in Bly, Ore., and Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who faces charges that include his role in the alleged camp scheme.
Manhattan prosecutors allege Aswat and another al-Masri associate, Oussama Kassir – a Lebanese-born Swede convicted of weapons violations in 2003 – were dispatched to the United States in 1999 to assess property in Bly for a training camp.
Authorities in Oregon have said the camp never materialized beyond a dozen people taking target practice and was abandoned for unknown reasons. Bly is an unincorporated town of a few hundred people 50 miles east of Klamath Falls.
Al-Masri is awaiting trial in Britain on charges of incitement to murder. Ujaama pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his cooperation.
Also Monday, three suspects in the failed July 21 London bombings were formally charged with attempted murder.
The court hearings took place amid tight security at Belmarsh prison in southeast London. Dozens of heavily armed officers stood guard outside the court, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.
The suspects, most dressed in standard prison navy sweat shirts and gray sweat pants, were led from their cells through an underground tunnel into the adjacent court building for separate hearings. They sat behind a thick, glass screen, flanked by officers wearing stab-proof vests.
Muktar Said Ibrahim, 27, Ramzi Mohammed, 23, and Yassin Hassan Omar, 24, were ordered to remain in custody until Nov. 14 on charges of attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, possessing or making explosives and conspiracy to use explosives on July 21. They face life in prison if convicted.