Who Funded Sniper Suspect Muhammad?
Reprinted from NewsMax.com
Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2002Although captured asleep in a $250 car, sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad had a history of high living. Now authorities say he may have been funded by schemes to smuggle into the country illegal aliens and provide them with false documents. Others suspect a conspiracy.
The strongest evidence of the suspect’s involvement with human smuggling comes from an acquaintance of Muhammad who lived in a house with him on the island of Antigua. The acquaintance told the New York Times that Muhammad’s modus operandi for generating cash was to fly Jamaican illegal aliens to the U.S. on the return tickets of legitimate travelers.
According to the Times' source, Muhammad, fka John Williams, would equip the illegal alien in Antigua with the return ticket, as well as a forged passport, which sold for between $1,000 and $1,500.
But the scheme did not go unnoticed by authorities.
INS Fails Again
According to reports in the Miami Herald, Muhammad was held in April 2001 at Miami’s International Airport because he was traveling with two undocumented Jamaican women. Eventually, INS officials released him and deported the women.
In its defense, Miami INS investigators claimed they wanted to pursue a case of alien smuggling or document fraud against him and referred the Muhammad case to the U.S. Attorney's Office, which reportedly concluded there was not enough evidence to charge Muhammad.
However, the office of Miami U.S. Attorney Marcos Daniel Jimenez nixes the INS's version, countering that the federal prosecutor has no record of any INS referral concerning Muhammad.
Adding to the human smuggling connection, Muhammad’s companion and now co-defendant, John Lee Malvo, arrived illegally in the U.S. aboard a cargo ship from Jamaica. He was in the company of his mother and other illegal aliens who came ashore south of Miami, evading immigration authorities.
At one point before relocating to Washington state, Malvo reportedly lived in Muhammad's three-bedroom, white wood stilt house with lime green trim in St. John's, Antigua. Muhammad was there with his own children, who attended a private school on the island.
A second opportunity for the INS to intercept Muhammad, before his deadly rampage, occurred in March 11, 2001, says the Herald. On that occasion the sniper suspect tried to board a plane from St. John's headed to Los Angeles when personnel at the terminal grew suspicious of Muhammad, who by this time was known to them. On his person were identity documents the name of a Russell Dwight.
Transported from the airport to a police station, Muhammad offered no explanation why he was carrying another’s documents. He slipped away from authorities out a side door.
In another incident, Mohammad obtained an Antiguan passport by proffering a forged birth certificate for himself and another birth certificate for a woman he maintained was his mother, the Herald revealed.
All this activity, say authorities, might explain how the suspect, although living in a homeless shelter and without a job, was able to travel with Malvo from Antigua to Washington state and other way stations. Also on his travel itinerary: Louisiana and Denver.
'Some Kind of Conspiracy'
The Rev. Al Archer, who ran a homeless shelter patronized by Muhammad in Bellingham, Wash., told the Washington Post: "He was doing all this flying, three or four trips that we were aware of, and he had to have money to do that. Yet he was living in a homeless shelter. It just didn't all fit together."
Archer was so concerned he contacted the FBI in October 2001.
"I thought that he was involved in some kind of conspiracy against our country," Archer said. "I thought that he was traveling around and doing things to promote this kind of thing."
Despite the high-flying life, however, this past February, Muhammad was caught shoplifting meat and frozen dinners from a Tacoma, Wash., food store. He failed to appear at the appointed court date.
Acquaintances in Antigua told the Times that Muhammad traveled often to the U.S. and returned with items such as compact discs, batteries, over-the-counter medicines, power tools and cameras that he sold for money.
'Looking Into the Angles'
"We're looking into the angles and explanations," Montgomery County, Md., state's attorney Doug Gansler said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Gansler said there was no evidence that any organized terrorist groups funded Muhammad.
Recall that shortly after the suspect was captured, authorities stampeded to rule out any ties to al-Qaeda. However, as Congress of Racial Equality Chairman Roy Innis has warned, there is a danger of terrorist organizations exploiting black Americans converted to Islam.
The investigation continues.
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
Immigration/Borders
Editor's note:
Revealed: The Terrorists Living Among Us