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Immigration and Customs Enforcement Chart

Click on the image below to download a larger version of the chart (PDF file, Apple Preview or Adobe Acrobat required, 125 KB)

Immigration and Customs Enforcement

"U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Diagram August 4, 2005."
[chart obtained through a FOIA request]

The chart diagrams the government's argument that the two Lodi, Calif., imams, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan, along with Umer and Hamid Hayat were connected to Al Qaeda, the Taliban and even to Osama bin Laden himself; and that Hamid Hayat had been recruited by the two imams to attend a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and then return to the United States to wage jihad.

Editor's Note: FRONTLINE has not verified any of the connections laid out in the chart.

Mr. Khan, a citizen of Pakistan and a trained Muslim cleric, came to the United States in April 2001 on a religious worker visa. He was hired to be imam at the mosque in Lodi, Calif., near Sacramento. A year later the mosque also sponsored Shabbir Ahmed to come from Pakistan and be its imam.

The FBI suspected that the two imams were a threat because they came from a madrassa in Pakistan that had ties to the Taliban and had been praised in a fatwa written by Osama Bin Laden. In addition, Khan had fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and Ahmed had given fiery anti-American speeches in Pakistan after the American invasion of Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11.

Despite several years of secret wiretapping and surveillance, the government did not have enough evidence to charge the imams with anything related to terrorism. Instead, they were tried for immigration violations. The hearing at which this chart was presented as evidence resulted in a ruling that Shabbir Ahmed was subject to deportation, at which point he elected to voluntarily leave the United States. Khan also elected voluntarily removal. Both imams were banned from seeking admission to the United States for 10 years.

 

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posted oct. 10, 2006

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