http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/22/nyreg ... error.html

November 22, 2005
Prosecutor Says Terror Suspect Knew He Was Helping Member of Al Qaeda
By JULIA PRESTON
A young Pakistani man tried to deceive American immigration authorities to help a known member of Al Qaeda enter the United States from Pakistan 18 months after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal prosecutor said yesterday during closing arguments in the man's trial.

The defendant, Uzair Paracha, knew that his countryman was a Qaeda operative because his father had told him so, said the prosecutor, Karl Metzner. Mr. Paracha's father had been a business associate of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and had met with Osama bin Laden there, Mr. Metzner said.

"The answer is simple: He knew," said Mr. Metzner, an assistant United States attorney.

Mr. Metzner was responding to Mr. Paracha's earlier testimony, under cross-examination, that he did not know about the Qaeda connection, and merely thought he was doing a favor for a friend of his father's.

Mr. Paracha, 25, has been on trial since Nov. 9 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, charged with five counts of terrorist conspiracy and providing material resources and services to Al Qaeda. He is accused of posing as another Pakistani, Majid Khan, to get American documents so that Mr. Khan could travel to the United States.

In a written agreement presented as evidence, the prosecution and the defense stipulated that Mr. Khan was a Qaeda operative. Mr. Khan, who has political asylum in the United States and lived for years in Baltimore before returning to Pakistan, is in United States custody at an unidentified location. Mr. Paracha's father, Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani real estate developer, is in military detention in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Uzair Paracha confessed that he had posed as Mr. Khan and that he knew Mr. Khan was involved with Al Qaeda during three days of questioning by F.B.I. agents and New York City police officers in March 2003, the prosecution has said. In eight other sessions after his arrest, with a lawyer present, he substantially confirmed his early account, Mr. Metzner said.

But Mr. Paracha testified that his confession was false, and that he had made it because he was exhausted and scared during the long hours of interrogation. He said he believed that if he told the agents he was helping Al Qaeda, they would view him as a cooperative witness and let him return to Pakistan.

"I was saying those things because I thought that was what they wanted to hear," Mr. Paracha said.

But Edward David Wilford, a defense lawyer, said in his summation yesterday that Mr. Paracha "was a dupe in every sense of the word." He told the jury that Mr. Paracha lacked "street smarts," and had been worn down by the agents. Evidence at trial showed that the police had found Mr. Khan's Social Security card, several credit cards and his Maryland driver's license in Mr. Paracha's briefcase. Mr. Khan needed American travel documents to return to the United States from Pakistan because he had left without giving the authorities the notice required of political refugees.

Mr. Paracha admitted yesterday that to help create the impression that Mr. Khan was still in the United States, he called the United States immigration service from a pay telephone near Madison Square Garden, claiming to be Mr. Khan. Witnesses testified that when Mr. Paracha was arrested, he was carrying a key to a Maryland post office box that Mr. Khan had rented to receive immigration documents. He also had a handwritten list of instructions from Mr. Khan telling him how to deceive the authorities to obtain the needed documents. But the documents were never issued, and Mr. Khan never made his trip to the United States.

Mr. Paracha confirmed that Mr. Khan had given him the identification cards at a meeting in a Karachi restaurant with his father.

Under cross-examination, Mr. Paracha confirmed that his father had met with Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan sometime in the year before the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Paracha testified that his father had told him that he "admired" Mr. bin Laden, saying he was impressed because he was "a humble person and he had a simple way of life."

In his confessions to antiterror agents, Mr. Paracha said that in 2002, Qaeda operatives asked his father to hold about $200,000 in cash for them. A deposit of $277,000 from Al Qaeda to a bank account of his father's in Pakistan was made in May 2003, after Mr. Paracha was detained, Mr. Metzner said.

Prosecutors claimed that Mr. Khan wanted to return to the United States to launch attacks on gas stations here. The evidence in the trial about Mr. Khan's intentions was thin.

But Mr. Paracha's testimony was also confusing, as he could not remember when he had lied to the agents and when he had told them the truth. "At different times I said absolutely contradictory things," Mr. Paracha said.

Mr. Paracha was held as a material witness from March 2003 until Aug. 8 of that year, when he was formally charged with supporting terrorism.