Man tied to Ressam held in Canada

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Canadian immigration authorities are holding an Algerian man they believe plotted bombings in the United States and Canada with Ahmed Ressam, convicted earlier this year of conspiring to attack the Los Angeles airport in 1999.

Immigration officials and staff at Canada’s Department of Justice declined comment on the arrest of Samir Ait Mohamed. But a Seattle newspaper on Saturday quoted law-enforcement sources as saying he has been held secretly for several weeks in Vancouver, British Columbia.

At least one closed-door detention hearing has been held in which FBI agents from Seattle testified about Mohamed’s alleged links to Ressam, the newspaper said.

Details of Mohamed’s apprehension were not available. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police referred inquiries to Citizenship and Immigration-Canada, where spokeswoman Denny Falls would say only, "We are aware of him."

An official with Canada’s Department of Justice, speaking on condition of anonymity, said no criminal charges were pending Friday against Mohamed. And a U.S. Justice Department source said he had not been named in charges or indictments in this country.

Ressam testified at a New York trial in July that he and Mohamed talked about "blowing up a neighborhood in Canada where there was an Israeli interest" in the summer of 1999, when they were living in Montreal.

Ressam — arrested at Port Angeles in December 1999 when he tried to bring explosives into the country from Canada — is cooperating with authorities as he awaits sentencing for conspiring to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.

He has confirmed he was trained in Afghanistan camps financed by Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and says a top bin Laden deputy gave him $12,000 for his operation.

When he testified in the New York trial of accomplice Mokhtar Haouari under his agreement with prosecutors, Ressam said Mohamed was aware he intended a terrorist attack in the United States.

Mohamed suggested that any bomb "be implanted in a gasoline truck for a larger and more serious explosion," Ressam told the court.

Ressam described Mohamed as someone who had a "relationship with jihad" — Islamic holy war — "for a long time." He said Mohamed and some friends wanted to start their own training camp in Afghanistan.

Ressam also said he had intended to open a small grocery store in Montreal with Haouari, Mohamed and another man, to be used as a front for stealing credit-card numbers and identities.

The store was to be in Ressam’s name, and he said his share was to be sent to a man in Great Britain known as Abu Doha, one of the men who ran a bin Laden terrorist-training camp in Afghanistan.

Doha has been indicted by a New York grand jury in the Ressam plot. He is fighting extradition from London.