The Case of the Missing Terrorist
Where Is Alleged Moussaoui Henchman Atif Ahmed?
by Jacob Levich
>>> In a mystery that raises further questions about official accounts of
the September 11 attacks, a man named as a key player in the Al Qaeda 9/11
conspiracy seems to have vanished from the face of the earth.
Atif Ahmed, 30, was scooped up by Scotland Yard detectives nine months ago
after the FBI, working with the New York City police, linked him to accused
"20th hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui. At the time of Ahmed's arrest, law
enforcement sources told ABC News they had found telephone records and other
evidence suggesting that Ahmed, a British national, was a co-conspirator
with Moussaoui.
In his own trial on capital conspiracy charges, Moussaoui, an admitted Al
Qaeda member, has identified Ahmed as a "very important part" of the 9/11
terror plot. Moussaoui has also claimed that Ahmed was a double agent
working for British intelligence. That charge, if true, would have alarming
implications about the extent of 9/11 foreknowledge among Western
intelligence agencies.
Yet, since the day of his arrest, Atif Ahmed has been all but erased from
the public record in what feels eerily like a deliberate news blackout. A
comprehensive review of online newspaper archives, Internet search engines,
unsealed court papers, and relevant government documents has failed to turn
up any mention of Ahmed, apart from Moussaoui's pleadings and a single ABC
News story dating from November of last year.
Where Ahmed is concerned, press coverage and official acknowledgment are
conspicuous by their absence. Although the US government has been highly
secretive in its proceedings against the hundreds of persons preventively
detained in the post-9/11 dragnet, arrests of alleged Al Qaeda conspirators,
like Moussaoui or Jose Padilla, have been well publicized and widely reported.
Similarly, the press has closely followed the stories of other alleged
Moussaoui henchmen, like his ex-roommates Hussein al-Attas and Ramzi
Binalshibh. If there is a blackout, it appears to apply only to Ahmed.
Calls to the FBI's national and New York press offices failed to yield any
information about Ahmed's status. "Never heard of the guy," FBI spokesman
Joe Valiquette said.
Thus the only publicly available information about Atif Ahmed is contained
in an ABC News item dated November 14, 2001, which remains accessible on the
network's Web site. Headlined "British Police Nab Terror Suspect," the story
reveals that Ahmed was picked up at his London dwelling and detained at the
request of US law enforcement officials, who claimed to have uncovered
telephone evidence suggesting that Ahmed "was working with" Moussaoui.
Further unspecified evidence was said to have been found during a search of
Ahmed's apartment.
As of the story's filing, Ahmed was being held without charge under the
British Counterterrorism Act. "Sources say the FBI wants Scotland Yard to
keep Ahmed in custody until it can be learned just how deeply may be
connected with Moussaoui," the story said.
The rest is silence. Despite the seriousness of the allegations against Atif
Ahmed, there has been no press follow-up, and it is impossible to discover
whether he has been charged or released, or indeed whether he is living or
dead.
Ironically, the only person who now seems to care about the status and
whereabouts of Atif Ahmed is terror defendant Zacarias Moussaoui, who has
chosen to represent himself in a desperate bid to save his own life.
Moussaoui has moved for a court order compelling the prosecution to produce
any and all information relating to Ahmed, but the government has so far
failed to respond. Meanwhile, on the rare occasions when Moussaoui has been
allowed to communicate indirectly with the outside world -- through
incidental remarks in open-court hearings and in a series of handwritten
motions recently unsealed by the court -- he has persisted in naming Ahmed
as both an al Qaeda conspirator and a British double agent. Moussaoui's
claims are self-serving, since his defense strategy relies on establishing
that the FBI and other intelligence agencies knew all about the terror plot,
and therefore must have known that he himself was not part of the "Nineteen
Martyrs Team." Yet his charge that Atif Ahmed was working for British
intelligence is suggestively consistent with the apparent news blackout.
Jacob Levich is a writer and editor living in
Queens, NY.
|