American jihadi James Ujaama nabbed in Belize

posted at 9:51 am on December 19, 2006 by Allahpundit
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Remember him? He became a disciple of UK terror honcho Abu “Captain Hook” Hamza in the late 1990s, visiting the Finsbury Park mosque at which Hamza ranted and managing an extremist website for him. Eventually he approached Hamza with the idea of starting an Al Qaeda training camp in Oregon; the attempt was amateurish but the feds saw it as an opportunity to nab Hamza, whose dirty fingers (the ones he had left, anyway) were in many terrorist pies. So the pinched Ujaama on an unrelated charge — delivering money, computers and even personnel to the Taliban in 2000.

The plea agreement’s Statement of Facts explains that in late 2000, an individual referred to as unindicted co-conspirator # 1 arranged for unindicted co-conspirator #2, a person desiring to undergo violent jihad training, to travel from London, England to Afghanistan to attend jihad training camps. At the direction of co-conspirator #1, Ujaama traveled with co-conspirator #2 from London to Pakistan, and then facilitated co-conspirator #2’s travel to the training camps in Afghanistan. In court today, Ujaama admitted that he was aware of the purpose of co-conspirator #2’s travel. The plea agreement further states that the government’s evidence established that these jihad training camps were affiliated with and used by al Qaeda.

Ujaama further admits that during this same trip, at the direction of co-conspirator #1, he delivered currency and other items to persons in the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. Ujaama entered Afghanistan with the assistance of Taliban officials and installed software programs that he had brought with him on computers belonging to Taliban officials. In early September 2001, again at the direction of co-conspirator #1, Ujaama transported currency from London to Pakistan with the intent of delivering it to persons in Afghanistan, but he was unable to cross the border into Afghanistan because of the local response to the attacks against the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.

After they arrested him they found he had documents about poisoning water supplies.

He pleaded out and got two years. After he served his time, he fled the country in violation of his parole. They’ve been looking for him ever since.

And now, in Belize of all places, they got him. The interesting part:

Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy, Leonard Hill, indicated that although Thompson’s immediate crime was a parole violation, he may in fact face additional charges and is also a material witness in other terror related cases. One indication of his status may be that federal officials sent down a private plane to bring him back to the States.

They wanted him all along as a state witness to help prosecute Hamza after his extradition to the U.S. from Britain. But the extradition’s not happening now — Hamza was convicted in a British court earlier this year of inciting murder and was sentenced to seven years. It’ll be interesting to see who they’ve got in the tank that this guy knows about.

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