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FBI agents arrive at the detention center in northern Malaysian to question Suffat
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By
Kazi Mahmood, IOL Southeast Asia Correspondent
KUALA
LUMPUR, November 18 (IslamOnline) – In an attempt to find links
between regional terror networks and the Al-Qaeda, the U.S. Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents questioned Internal Security Act
(ISA) detainee Yazid Suffat at the detention camp in Kamunting.
They
interrogation, which allegedly centered on the September 11 attacks
against the U.S., took less than two hours after arriving in a U.S.
embassy car at the detention center, Bernama news agency reported
Monday. November 18.
The FBI agents, reported to have arrived in Kuala Lumpur Wednesday,
November 13, were believed to have questioned Yazid, a former army
captain.
Suffat
is believed to be a member of the Malaysia Militant Movement (KMM),
over his alleged links with suspected hijackers of the American
Airlines aircraft which hit the Pentagon in Washington September 11,
2001.
They were scheduled to question Suffat Friday, November 15, but it was
postponed for some reason, the agency added.
Three
men, believed to be FBI agents, entered the center without speaking to
waiting reporters, said an Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer.
His lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli said the interrogators are there over
his connections with Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person to have been
put on trial in the United States over the attacks on New York and
Washington last year.
Suffat's
lawyer, Saiful Izham Ramli, has told AFP that the former army captain
will cooperate with the U.S. investigators. He is expected to be
present during questioning.
Early this year, the United States urged the Malaysian government to
deport the suspect to the U.S. for questioning. The U.S. authorities
were certain Suffat’s presence in the U.S. would help in the trial
of Moussaoui, the French citizen of Moroccan descent.
However,
Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad insisted Suffat was not
arrested for alleged links with September 11 plotters, but for his
involvement in the KMM – a reportedly local terrorist organization.
Newspapers
in the U.S. had alleged that Suffat rented his apartment to two of the
suspects in the September 11 hijacking. They claimed Suffat was an
important operative of the Al-qaeda in Malaysia.
Sejahratul
Dursina, the wife of Suffat, who was also detained under the Internal
Security Act (ISA) early this year, said Saturday, November 16, that
she was not worried about the FBI interviews of her husband. She was
released two months after her arrest in June this year.
Suffat,
a businessman running his own company, had employed Moussaoui, who
knew some of the suspects in the attacks on the U.S. according to the
FBI, as an agent in the US.
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Yazid Suffat |
Suffat’s
was first made public when he was mentioned as the employer of
Moussaoui, who was allegedly paid U.S. 2000 dollars a month as salary
and had for mission to source for products for the company.
Yazid
is accused by the FBI of providing lodging to two suspected hijackers,
Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, at his apartment in Kajang during
their visit to Kuala Lumpur.
He
is also accused of allowing suspected Al-Qaeda member Zacarias
Moussaoui, who is detained by the U.S. authorities, to stay at his
apartment when he was in Malaysia in September and October, 2000.
The
suspect, Suffat, however, denied all the information, saying that he
knew Moussaoui but did not employ him. His company does not have the
need and the capital to employ an agent in the U.S. he told his
lawyers, sources said.
One
of Suffat’s lawyers told IslamOnline that the latter denied knowing
the existence of the KMM and said he never knew there was an
organization called the Al-Qaeda, adding that his arrest under the ISA
was unfortunate.
Yazid
was arrested at the immigration checkpoint in Bukit Kayu Hitam along
the Malaysian-Thai border December 9, 2001, on his return from
Pakistan via Thailand.
