Va. Student Held for Months in Saudi Prison

Shortly before his final exams at Saudi Arabia's University of Medina, Ahmed Abu Ali told his parents that he was looking forward to coming home to Falls Church for summer vacation. He joked with his younger sister about finding him a nice woman to marry. And he promised a close friend they'd have a long-awaited reunion at another friend's wedding in late June.

But the 22-year-old student never made it home. On June 11, Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi authorities while taking one of his exams, and he has been in a Saudi prison ever since.

The strongest clue about the reasons for his imprisonment came in July, from an FBI agent testifying in federal court in Alexandria in the case of a group of Northern Virginia men alleged to be part of a "jihad network." According to the agent's testimony, Abu Ali told his Saudi interrogators that he had joined an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and that he aspired to be a planner like Mohamed Atta, the ringleader of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers.

Abu Ali's family and friends say that he has no connection to terrorism and that the agent's claims make no sense to them. "If he had any of those thoughts the government said he has, it should have come up on my radar screen long ago," said Saif Abdul Rahman, 25, an Alexandria resident who has known Abu Ali since grade school.

With no public evidence or open court hearing in Abu Ali's case, the degree to which he may have been involved in terrorism remains a mystery. Neither Saudi nor U.S. authorities will say publicly whether charges have been filed against him or tell his family what alleged acts led to his lengthy detention. His rights as a U.S. citizen offer him no legal protection while he is in Saudi custody. And U.S. law enforcement officials appear content to leave him where he is.

Abu Ali has yet to see a lawyer, his parents say. And based on comments he has made to them on the phone since his arrest, they fear he is being coerced into saying things that aren't true.

"If you think our son is guilty, bring him to this country," said his mother, Faten Abu Ali. "Don't have him in a country where we can't guarantee his rights. ... Bring him into his own country in its courts, where justice can be served."

In a written statement issued in response to a reporter's inquiries, the foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah described the case as "an ongoing investigation by both governments."

"The U.S. government is aware of the case of Abu Ali and why he is detained," wrote the adviser, Adel Al-Jubeir. "The U.S. government had access to the suspect and continues to have access." He offered no further comment on the investigation, although he denied that Abu Ali is being mistreated.

FBI spokesman Ed Cogswell said the bureau does not have any evidence that Abu Ali has been mistreated while in Saudi custody. Citing national security, Cogswell said he could not comment on why the student is being held or whether the FBI has any plans to bring him to the United States.

FBI officials speaking on condition of anonymity said the bureau's agents have worked on the case and observed some of Abu Ali's interrogations by the Saudis.

U.S. law enforcement officials have repeatedly said that their main focus in the battle against al Qaeda is gathering intelligence from suspects rather than charging them criminally. And they have acknowledged that in some cases, that has led to suspected terrorists being interrogated in foreign prisons, where they do not have U.S. legal protections and cannot refuse to answer questions by invoking their right against self-incrimination.

The Saudi government's cooperation with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts increased after bombings on May 12 in Riyadh that killed 35 people, and Saudi officials have promised to intensify their crackdown on al Qaeda since another deadly bombing Nov. 8 in the Saudi capital.

One reason U.S. officials have said they are interested in Abu Ali is his alleged ties to the Northern Virginia men accused of conspiring to support al Qaeda and wage "violent jihad" on behalf of Muslims abroad.

In that case, 11 men were charged in June in federal court in Alexandria with supporting Lashkar-i-Taiba, a group that is fighting to wrest Kashmir from Indian control and has been designated a terrorist organization by the U.S. government. The men allegedly trained for military combat overseas by playing paintball in the Virginia countryside.

Four of the defendants have since pleaded guilty to gun and conspiracy charges. The remaining seven were named in a new indictment in September that accuses two of the men of conspiring to provide material support to al Qaeda and the Taliban by planning to go to Afghanistan to fight U.S. troops.

U.S. counterterrorism officials provide varying assessments of Abu Ali's relative status as a terrorism suspect.

One U.S. law enforcement official said that "we view him as a player" with significant ties to al Qaeda and to the Northern Virginia group. But a senior FBI counterterrorism official characterized Abu Ali as "very peripheral."

The same official said that the Saudi government has filed terrorism charges against Abu Ali. "I'm not aware of any information that he broke any U.S. laws," the official said. "But the Saudis have found a reason to charge him based on his interviews. If he confessed to [al Qaeda] membership, they're going to hold him."

Saudi officials initially said that Abu Ali was suspected in connection with the May 12 bombings in Riyadh, but several U.S. law enforcement sources said the FBI has concluded that Abu Ali probably did not play a role in them.

Kelly Shannon, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, said a U.S. consular officer in Riyadh has "been visiting Ahmed, and our consular office here has been working closely with the family." She declined to give further information because of privacy restrictions.

For Omar and Faten Abu Ali, the allegations made against their son are hard to believe. They said that Abu Ali does not hate his homeland and that while he is a devout Muslim, he is not rigid or extremist in his beliefs. His mother, who said she and her husband have raised their children to "think critically and not to obey blindly," sees her son's predicament as part of a larger picture.

"We Muslims are facing a lot after 9/11, and we shouldn't be facing this," she said. "For me, I'm sure my son is innocent. ... My own country is leaving him there where he has no rights. ... 9/11 should not be a reason for Muslims to suffer in this country and lose our rights."

Abu Ali's parents and four siblings live in a high-rise Falls Church apartment building not far from Dar Al Hijrah mosque, which the family attends.

Abu Ali was born in Houston, where his parents were living after emigrating from Jordan. Omar Abu Ali, now a U.S. citizen, works as a computer programmer at the Saudi Embassy. His wife is a pharmacist and permanent legal U.S. resident.

Their son was valedictorian of his 1999 high school graduating class at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria. David Kovalik, the academy's director of education, described Abu Ali as "an exceptional student" who was "very strong in science and math and just very personable; he helped others and was respectful to teachers."

His parents were not thrilled when he told them he wanted to pursue a degree in Islamic studies after high school and asked him how he expected to make a living.

Bending to their wishes, he entered the University of Maryland at College Park to study engineering in the fall of 1999 on a scholarship. But he wasn't happy there, and the next year he transferred to the Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America in Fairfax County. The institute, affiliated with al-Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, has a heavily religious-oriented curriculum reflecting Saudi Arabia's conservative brand of Islam.

But Abu Ali wanted to study Islam in a more spiritual setting, his family said, and he eventually enrolled at the University of Medina.

Five days after Abu Ali's June 11 arrest, 15 to 20 armed FBI agents searched his family's apartment and confiscated several boxes of papers, books, cassettes, two computers and family photographs. According to the search warrant, they were looking for items related to al Qaeda, Lashkar-i-Taiba and the defendants in the Virginia "jihad" conspiracy case.

Abu Ali's family said that he knows some of the defendants in the jihad case but that this is not unusual because they were all in the same circle of young men who attended Dar Al Hijrah. One defendant in that case, Randall Todd Royer, said in an interview this year that Abu Ali had "played once or twice" with the paintball group.

At bond hearings for two of the paintball defendants, prosecutors argued that it was too risky to release them on bail — partly because their phone numbers had been found on Abu Ali's cell phone directory and both had said they had met him in Saudi Arabia.

According to a transcript of a hearing on July 30, FBI agent Jim R. Sobchack testified that Abu Ali "was a participant in some of the jihad training" alleged in the Alexandria indictment.

Sobchack also testified that during FBI-observed interrogations, Abu Ali "explained to the Saudis that he was there to join an Al-Qaeda cell. And in fact, [he] had joined an Al-Qaeda cell and participated in weapons and explosives training." Al Qaeda, Sobchack continued, "gave Mr. Ali a choice, and that is he could either participate in a terrorist act or he could return to the United States and form an Al-Qaeda cell in the United States."

Abu Ali "indicated that he would prefer to be a planner such as Mohamed Atta ... but that he would be willing to participate in an attack," Sobchack said.

In phone calls to his family on July 31 and Aug. 9, Abu Ali said he was fine, was playing soccer with other prisoners and did not know why he had been arrested. He also told his family not to "make the subject bigger than it is" and that they should "consider him on a long trip in the jungle."

But his tone changed in a third call, on Aug. 23. According to his family, he said, "Hurry, hurry, I'm facing a trial in two weeks. ... Get me a lawyer." He later told them the trial had been postponed.

The family says they are confused because U.S. officials have told them that Abu Ali has not been charged. They also say that he has denied making any confession to the Saudis.

In an Oct. 10 call, he told his parents that FBI agents had interrogated him for several hours and threatened to send him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States is holding detainees from the war on terrorism, or have him declared an "enemy combatant," which would allow U.S. authorities to jail him indefinitely without access to lawyers.

"Mom, what am I supposed to do?" Faten recalled her son saying on the phone. "I have two countries against me!"

FBI spokesman Cogswell said he has no any information to corroborate Abu Ali's claims that he was threatened with enemy combatant status.

Ashraf Nubani, a lawyer hired by the family, said he had not been able to get a Saudi lawyer to meet with Abu Ali in prison. "I reached out to several attorneys in Saudi Arabia, and they told us they couldn't touch [the case] at all," he said. "It's too sensitive."

Staff writers Dan Eggen and Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.