WASHINGTON, 2 June 2004 — A 34-year-old Saudi national with alleged ties to two of the Sept. 11 hijackers was arrested last Thursday near his home in Vista, California, on immigration charges stemming from two misdemeanor convictions for domestic violence.
The Department of Homeland Security said Hasan Saddiq Faseh Alddin, a legal permanent resident of the United States and the husband of a US citizen, is not suspected of involvement in any terrorist activities.
Agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement said they have no indication that Hasan Saddiq Faseh Alddin was part of the conspiracy to destroy the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
They would not specify whether Alddin ever met the hijackers, but said deporting the married father of two would be “in the best interest of our national security.”
Alddin is alleged to have roomed with a close friend of Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almidhar, both of whom died Sept. 11, 2001, when the American Airlines jetliner they and three others commandeered crashed into the Pentagon, Homeland Security officials said.
Federal officials said the roommate, whom they did not identify, left the United States the day before the attacks.
Mike Unzueta, deputy special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Diego, told journalists Alddin’s arrest is not tied to last week’s announcement by US Attorney Gen. John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller of an effort to root out a possible terrorist attack in the United States this summer.
According to a congressional report, Alhazmi and Almidhar had more visible links to Al-Qaeda than any of the other hijackers.
Alddin was singled out as part of an investigation by the San Diego Joint Terrorism Task Force into people with possible links to terrorists, Unzueta said.
“Our No. 1 priority is keeping our country safe and preventing any further terrorist attacks,” Unzueta told the media. “With Mr. Alddin’s association with the (friend) of the two hijackers, we feel it’s certainly in the best interest of our national security to have Mr. Alddin deported.”
Agents of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Homeland Security’s largest investigative arm, said Alddin entered the United States on a student visa in August 1994. They said he attended San Diego State for one semester, taking courses in English, and subsequently married, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1999. School officials told journalists they found no record of him.
Alddin and his wife, Pamela, have two children, ages 2 and 6, and lived for years in a quiet, gated, upper-middle-class neighborhood in Vista, a suburb of San Diego.
Alddin’s residency is currently at risk because of two misdemeanor domestic violence convictions in 1998 and 2002. Alddin is on probation from his most recent case and was required to perform 20 hours of community service at a mosque.
Foreign nationals convicted of domestic violence are subject to deportation. He is being held without bond pending deportation proceedings.
Randall B. Hamud, a lawyer who represented four students who were arrested as material witnesses after Sept. 11, said knowing the friend of a hijacker is no reason to brand someone a terrorist.
He said the arrest of Alddin is part of a nationwide witch-hunt targeting Middle Easterners whose connections to terrorism are either nonexistent or unsubstantiated.
Numerous members of the local Muslim community told reporters they were not familiar with Alddin, and neighbors said they were surprised to learn of Alddin’s arrest. Next-door neighbor Lisa Hansen said Alddin was “friendly and polite.” Though she didn’t know him well, she said she was skeptical that her neighbor was involved in terrorism.
