Virginia: Man Suspected Of Bin Laden Link Accused of Fraud

He's linked to our old friend Al-Arian, too, as well as the International Institute of Islamic Thought. From the Washington Post, with thanks to Teri:

A Northern Virginia man who allegedly delivered a satellite-phone battery to Afghanistan for Osama bin Laden's use in 1998 is now facing charges of immigration and mortgage-loan fraud, according to court documents unsealed in recent days.

Tarik Hamdi, 43, a naturalized U.S. citizen who had been living in Herndon, is believed to be out of the country and has not been arrested, said Dean Boyd, a spokesman with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department....

Hamdi delivered a satellite phone battery to a Bin Laden aide while he was in Afghanistan in May 1998 helping to set up an interview for ABC News, according to an affidavit by David Kane, an agent with the immigration division. Bin Laden used that phone in connection with the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that year, according to the affidavit, which was in support of a 2002 search warrant and was unsealed last week.

It was unclear how long Hamdi has been out of the country, but the grand jury charged him in a sealed indictment in May. A call to his former employer, the International Institute for Islamic Thought in Herndon, was not returned yesterday....

According to the indictment in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Hamdi did not state on his naturalization form that in 1994 he had been the U.S. representative for the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights in Saudi Arabia, a London-based organization that has embraced many of bin Laden's views.

In addition, Hamdi did not acknowledge that he had tried to qualify for immigration amnesty by claiming to have worked on a Texas farm in the mid-1980s, the papers say. His application was denied after officials determined the farmer who vouched for him was a phony, according to the indictment.

Hamdi emigrated from Iraq in 1983 on a student visa and eventually married a U.S. citizen, who sponsored him for permanent residency, the court papers say.