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Language teachers arrested at U.S. military base
Staff and agencies
05 October, 2005


WASHINGTON - Two Indonesians and a Senegalese who worked as foreign language instructors for elite U.S. special operations troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been arrested on immigration charges, authorities said on Wednesday.

The Army said the three worked at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. Sgt. Joseph Healy, a spokesman for Army Special Operations Command, said the three had a purely academic role and "were not exposed to any Army special operations tactics techniques or procedures."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the arrests were part of an effort to remove illegal immigrants working at sensitive U.S. sites and critical infrastructure locations such as airports, seaports, nuclear plants, chemical plants and military bases.

ICE agents on Tuesday arrested Indonesians Nurkis Qadariah, 34, and Sayf Rimal, 37, and charged them with possessing and using false immigration documents and making false statements, the agency said.

They were contractors working for BIB Consultants Inc., a Florida-based company that provides language instructors to U.S. Special Forces and other military personnel at Fort Bragg. Criminal complaints filed against them said they used counterfeit Resident Alien cards and falsely claimed they were lawful U.S. permanent residents to get work with BIB.

Authorities said there were pending deportation proceedings against Qadariah and Rimal in New York.

ICE agents also arrested Senegalese Ousmane Moreau, 38, as part of the same investigation and charged him with being in the United States illegally, which will lead to proceedings to remove him from the country, the agency said.

"Unauthorized workers who use fraudulent documents to gain work at sensitive U.S. military installations pose a serious homeland security threat," Jeff Jordan, the agency‘s assistant special agent-in-charge in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a statement.

"Not only are their identities in question, but they are also vulnerable to potential exploitation by terrorists and other criminals given their illegal status in this country," Jordan said. "Furthermore, these individuals have access to some of the most sensitive work sites in the nation."

Authorities said the arrests stemmed from an investigation by ICE, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the Army Criminal Investigation Command and Fort Bragg security officials.