08-22-2010, 08:43 PM
Quote:Passenger arrested at Houston airport with jihadist books, a weapon
August 21st, 2010 12:30 am
A passenger from Mumbai, India was sweating and shifting back and forth and fidgeting with his hands as he stood in line at the Intercontinental Airport Terminal E security checkpoint.
When 40-year-old Vijay Kumar was pulled aside for secondary screening, after raising suspicion with Transportation Security Administration 'behavioral detection officers,' even more alarm was raised by what was found.
One law enforcement officer said, "He had a ton of books," including jihadist books and publications written in Arabic. Some focused on espionage and other diagrams seemed to explain how certain US military weapons can be taken apart in the field.
The title of one book was "Spycraft" and another was titled "New Voices of Islam" and police noticed mentions of "infidels" in some of the writings that could be made out clearly.
"It definitely raised our concerns," said one law enforcement official involved in the arrest. "Not your everyday passenger would have this sort of stuff and it definitely poses a concern for anyone involved in airport security," he said.
The books and radical Muslim material was found in stacks, packed in Kumar's carry-on luggage, according to the police report.
Officers also found a pair of brass-knuckles in the luggage he had checked with his airline to be carried in the cargo hold of the aircraft. In Texas, brass-knuckles are prohibited by law so he was booked on a felony charge of Possessing a Prohibited Weapon in a Prohibited Place (airport).
FBI agents were called to the secondary screening area where Kumar was being detained. Agents are now checking his name on terror watch lists and 'no fly' lists, but there is no indication that his name has appeared on any of those lists.
In addition to the brass knuckles and the jihadist publications, police confiscated more than $10,000 in cash that Kumar is accused of carrying on his trip.
Federal law requires anyone carrying $10,000 or more to declare the currency to Customs agents, but law enforcement officials said there was no such declaration for Kumar.
One federal prosecutor said his office was still researching how that law applies in this case since only about $8,000 was in US currency. Several thousand dollars more were made up of foreign currencies, so the prosecutor wasn't sure if Kumar would face charges related to the stacks of cash.
The security alert reached its peak during Friday afternoon's lunch-hour arrest when screeners began their secondary screening of Kumar. A TSA officer pulled out a swab and rubbed it all over Kumar's bags to test for explosives.
Suddenly, the alarm sounded on the testing machine, indicating that the powerful home-made explosive TATP was detected on the bags of this suspicious passenger carrying jihadist publications.
Airport officials said no other passengers were affected and most likely didn't even see any commotion, even during the height of the concerns.
A secondary test was conducted with a new swab being rubbed on his luggage and then placed in a freshly calibrated detection machine. That secondary test came up negative, which security workers say would likely mean the first machine wasn't calibrated properly.
A third explosives test also tested negative and no other indications of explosives were apparent.
Police and FBI agents said they were turning their attention to Kumar's background and what he was doing in Houston, and they're also planning to examine a computer flash drive (or "thumb drive") that Kumar was carrying.
Flash drives can hold thousands of documents or diagrams, but no one had gotten a look at the contents as of Friday evening. A search warrant may be required to view the thumb drive, even though international passengers typically have fewer legal protections when the government wants to look at something they were going to be carrying onto an airliner.
Kumar told police he was in Houston attending an "Islamic seminar." His booking sheet describes him as standing 5'10" and weighing 215 pounds.
A search of federal court records in Houston shows a 2007 lawsuit filed by a man with the same name, same age, and same hometown as Kumar. In that lawsuit, Kumar described himself as a native and citizen of India, who was admitted to the United STates in 2004 on a student visa to the University of Connecticut.
The lawsuit said he had earlier studied at Texas Tech University after entering the US in 2003. He then transferred to University of Connecticut, where the lawsuit said he earned an MBA degree to bolster his undergraduate engineering degree.
The lawsuit said he married a US citizen in 2004 and he filed to change his immigration status to allow him to remain in the US past his student visa in 2005.
His lawsuit claims FBI has been holding up his citizenship paperwork by claiming it couldn't complete the proper background checks.
In the lawsuit, his lawyer writes, "Plaintiffs request that the Court order the Defendants FBI to immediately complete the national security check."
The suit claims the government's refusal to act on his citizenship paperwork is "arbitrary."
It was unclear Friday night whether federal agents would be placing a "hold" on Kumar, which would keep him locked up while further investigation is conducted.
Typically, someone jailed for such a felony weapons charge could post bond and be released within a few hours of arrest. If a federal hold is placed, it could allow him to be locked up for several days without ever facing a federal judge.
He will be facing a Harris County District Court judge on Monday. Court records show he was being held in an "interfacility" jail, which is not considered to be part of the Harris County Jail.
Prosecutors have already filed a motion to request a high bond. The contents of that motion that spell out the specific reasons for requesting a high bond were not available Friday night.
His bond was listed as $50,000, which is already unusually high for this particular felony. The judge could raise or lower that bond at Monday's court hearing.
http://www.examiner.com/page-one-in-hous...s-a-weapon