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Malaysian Denies Paying for Sept 11 Attacks
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| Yazid Sufaat
denies aiding alleged Sept 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui. |
By Kazi Mahmood, IOL Correspondent
JAKARTA, Feb. 1 (IslamOnline) - In Kuala Lumpur a member of the Jemaah Islamiah group based in Singapore, Yazid Sufaat, on Thursday denied charges he paid for the September 11th attacks.
Yazid Sufaat, 37, who is facing possible extradition to the U.S., is accused of having links with Zacarias Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan birth.
Moussaoui is the only person who has been officially charged for the September 11th incident.
Yazid Sufaat, a biochemist, is believed to be a small player in the al-Qaeda network. He admitted issuing letters to Moussaoui to provide the latter with business credentials.
But he told investigators that he had not given the French national $35,000 to attend a flight school in America.
Malaysian police arrested Sufaat in late December last year. He earlier denied any involvement with Moussaoui, maintaining that his company did not have anything to do with terrorist groups.
Malaysian police said they have no evidence that indicates Sufaat was directly involved in the planning of the September 11th attacks on the U.S.
In the U.S., the press is insisting that Sufaat has evidence showing that Malaysia was a major staging area for the terror attacks.
A New York Times article quoted U.S. officials as saying Yazid had begun cooperating with Malaysian investigators and had provided evidence to show that the country was a major staging area for the terror attacks, the Straits Times Singapore revealed Friday.
However, Malaysian authorities insist that the 23 members of the Jemaah Islamiah detained under the ISA (Internal Security Act) had planned to set up an Islamic state through the use of force.
The Times, quoting U.S. President George W. Bush administration officials, said that Yazid appeared to be Zacarias's paymaster and had provided him with false credentials from his company.
The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier suggested that Sufaat had met two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, at his condominium outside Kuala Lumpur in January 2000.
The two hijackers subsequently traveled to the U.S. for flight training and were among those who commandeered the American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, a Malaysian preacher admitted that he underwent military training under the Taliban in Pakistan several years ago.
He said he was sponsored by an organization founded by Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who is said to be the real leader of the Mujahidin's in Southeast Asia.
Abu Nabilah, 49, said that he, another Malaysian and a young Indonesian were taught how to make bombs, use weapons and prepare battle logistics such as building bridges, reported Berita Harian Malaysia Thursday.
The report, however, did not say why Nabilah made the admission.
Nabilah is a "freelance preacher" and is not linked to any religious group. He claimed he was approached by Bashir's organization, Darul Islam, while studying at a Qur'an research center.
In 1987, he was told to get ready for a religious study trip to Pakistan.
He said he sensed something was amiss when he and 28 others were made to undergo military training for a month at a secret location near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
When he and his friends realized that they were sent to Peshawar to create unrest there, they left Darul Islam and returned to Malaysia in 1988.
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