INCOMPETENCE

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Effort here to charge London suspect was blocked
By Hal Bernton and David Heath
Seattle Times staff reporters
Sunday, July 24, 2005 - Page updated at 12:00 AM


The Justice Department blocked efforts by its prosecutors in Seattle in 2002 to bring criminal charges against Haroon Aswat, according to federal law-enforcement officials who were involved in the case.

British authorities suspect Aswat of taking part in the July 7 London bombings, which killed 56 and prompted an intense worldwide manhunt for him.

But long before he surfaced as a suspect there, federal prosecutors in Seattle wanted to seek a grand-jury indictment for his involvement in a failed attempt to set up a terrorist-training camp in Bly, Ore., in late 1999. In early 2000, Aswat lived for a couple of months in central Seattle at the Dar-us-Salaam mosque.

"It was really frustrating," said a former Justice Department official involved in the case. "Guys like that, you just want to sweep them up off the street."

British intelligence officials now think that in the days and hours before the July 7 bombings, Aswat was in cellphone contact with at least two of the four suicide bombers, according to The Times of London.

In May 2004, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft announced an 11-count indictment by a federal grand jury in New York against Abu Hamza, who allegedly sent Aswat to Oregon to scout out the proposed training camp. A department news release said "the indictment alleges that Abu Hamza was a terrorist facilitator with global reach — from aiding hostage takers in Yemen, to attempting to set up a jihad training camp in Oregon."

At the time, however, federal prosecutors chose not to indict Aswat for reasons that are not clear. Asked why Aswat wasn't indicted, a federal official in Seattle replied, "That's a great question."