http://wpherald.com/articles/2689/1/US-fugitive-with-terror-ties-arrested-in-Belize/American-Muslim-fugitive-pleased-guilty-in-2003.html

U.S. fugitive with terror ties arrested in Belize

American Muslim fugitive pleased guilty in 2003


By Jerry Seper
The Washington Times

Police in Belize yesterday arrested an American Muslim with ties to al 
Qaeda who pleaded guilty in 2003 to conspiring to provide cash, 
computers and fighters to the Taliban, but fled after agreeing to 
cooperate in ongoing investigations.

Authorities said James Ujaama, who was wanted for parole violation, 
entered Belize, a small country on the eastern coast of Central America, 
10 days ago using a phony Mexican passport.

"The police conducted an investigation, and some time around midnight 
last night or earlier this morning, this fugitive was apprehended here 
in Belize City," said acting Police Chief Eduardo Wade, adding that one 
Belizean police inspector was treated and later released for injuries he 
received when Ujaama "attempted to escape during his apprehension."

Ujaama, who served two years in a plea agreement on charges of dealing 
with al Qaeda and providing various types of material support to the 
Taliban, has since been turned over to U.S. authorities, said Leonard 
Hill, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy.

Mr. Hill said Ujaama's immediate crime was a parole violation, but he 
could face additional charges and also is being held as 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," Mr. Hill said.

Ujaama, also known as Ernest James Thompson, was first arrested in 
Denver in July 2002 as a material witness and later named in a federal 
grand jury indictment of providing resources to al Qaeda. The indictment 
said he was attempting to create a camp for training terrorists near 
Bly, Ore., between October and December of 1999.

In April 2003, the government filed a superseding complaint saying 
Ujaama took money, computer equipment and women to Taliban officials in 
Afghanistan. In February 2004, he agreed to cooperate with U.S. 
prosecutors -- especially for what he knew about radical London cleric 
Abu Hamza al-Masri, who has since been convicted in Britain of inciting 
murder and racial hatred.

Al-Masri, the one-eyed former head of the Finsbury Park mosque in north 
London, preached hatred to hundreds of young Muslims, including Zacarias 
Moussaoui, the only person charged in the U.S. in connection with the 
September 11 attacks.

Ujaama, a former community activist in Seattle, converted to Islam in 
the post-civil rights era. While traveling in England in 1999, he 
purportedly met with al-Masri and then traveled to Afghanistan to study 
Shariah, according to family friends. Shariah refers to the legal 
framework within which public and some private aspects of life are 
regulated for those living in a legal system based on Muslim principles 
of jurisprudence.

As part of the plea agreement, which limited his prison terms to just 
two years, he admitted delivering currency and other items to persons in 
the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban, and that with 
the assistance of the Taliban, he entered the country to install 
software programs he had brought with him on computers belonging to 
Taliban officials.

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