9/11 Law Enforcement Privacy

• Event:

Location:
Memorandum for the Record

Briefing re Mohdar Abdullah

Department of Justice

Date: June 7, 2004

Access Restricdb~~: None

Commission Participa~~s: Dieter Snell, Mike Jacobson, Hyon Kim

Non-Commission Participants: Faith Burton, DOJ Legislative Affairs

Pat O'Brien, Director's Office, FBI
Jeff Breinholt, DOJ, Criminal Division,
Counterterrori sm
"', 'FBI, CT Division
Jonathan Cohn, DOJ, Civil Division,
Ethan Kanter, DOJ, Office of
Deputy Attorney General

•
The briefing began with an explanation by Dieter Snell about the Commission's
involvement with regard to Mohdar Abdullah, including the efforts to interview him in
late 2003 and the background on how the Commission learned about the recent reporting
on Abdullah.

Breinholt is the Deputy Chief for Counterterrorism in the Criminal Division. In

his position he has responsibility for terrorism financing matters and -reviews all
recommendations for filing charges on material support for terrorism. After 9/11,
Breinholt was assigned to work the cases in San Diego. He worked with Shane Harrigan,
a federal prosecutor in San Diego, on the Omar al 8ayoumi, Osama Bassnan and Mohdar
Abdullah cases. .

Abdullah raised the interest of the prosecutors in New York. and he was taken
there as a material witness' . I
Ultimately, it was
decided that he would not be included in the Zacarias Moussaoui indictment, Abdullah
was sent back to San Diego where he was charged with visa fraud ..,/He pled guilty in July
of2002 and was sentenced to time served in October 2002. He ~as then ordered
deported, and was transferred to immigration custody. /./ ....

In early May 2004, Breinholt was contacted by MikeLindeman from the Office
of Immigration Litigation and learned that the State Department's efforts to convince
Yemen to accept Abdullah had finally succeeded. Lindeman had received a call from

•
DHS alerting him to the fact that the papers were ready.for Abdullah's deportation.
BreinhoIt called Shane Harrigan to make sure that Abdullah's case was properly scrubbed

··CLASSI:'!ED BY - JJ..9.>-'..1.~.,.-I,.I.'C!{\fJ SE(::RET/' 1

.~I) ~.1_.._....'.'---'-_..'-".'..-:
-<:-::. •. =l -
~ tJ - - - ~ • -~ ....-
9/11 Closed by Statute
\--l.·fR, r
'9/11 Law Enforcement Privacy

.."';;:;:.: ••••..... SEC~ET 9/11 Personal Privacy

• 'fo~:l!:nlj:iotential criminal cha~g~s befo~e he ~as deporl~d. Breinholt st~te<;lthat the EC's
by SA_ """ ""'" ~escnblng the interviews of Abdullah's fellow Inmates may have
been inresponse toalead from FBI headquarters to review the Abdullah matter.

C)~/)SAI""" ". ·····~escribed the reports of t~ ..inmates as "nothing new"

and stated that any jailhouse re orts'b d to be viewed skeptically. He stated that the
reports were reviewed by S" "" ofPenttbo·:',· and that the conclusion
was basically that there was nothing there. SA \,\, did acknowledge that
FBI San Diego is attempting to corroborate the statements, forinstance by looking for
Abdullah's pre-9111 roommates to see if Abdullah made statements prior to 9/11 similar
those reported by the inmates. \"..,'-.

~...~~_~_~~~~~~-"'!"'~_~~~_~~~~
With re ard to Samir Abdoun
On the Public
Defender's office and the divided loyalties conflict issue, Breinholt stated that the PD's
office was representing a number of detainees in their habeas petitions on the order of the
ChiefJudge of the district. The prosecutors in San Diego raised the issue with the PO's
office. \rhe position of the PD's office was that they are comfortable with their
conclusion that there is no conflict. Breinholt indicated that the Department was open to
suggestions on how to pursue to the conflict issue, including a disqualification motion
against the..,PD's office in Abdoun's habeas petition. Breinholt added that the Department
remained very interested in getting to the bottom of the jailhouse statements issue, and
indicated (bt1~did not commit) that the Department would give serious consideration to
.• pursuing such.an application.

On the question of whether an enemy combatant designation was considered for

Abdullah, Breinholt responded that he did not know. If it was considered, his office was
not involved. Breinholt explained that the Criminal Division is not involved in the
process of enemy combatant designations, so as to avoid the situation where a defense
attorney would argue that the Criminal Division threatened a defendant with an enemy
combatant designation to force a guilty plea. John Walker Lindh's attorneys are
apparently making such claims.

Ultimately, the San Diego prosecutors determined that criminal charges could not
be brought against Abdun~h and he was de orted on May 21, 2004, arriving in Yemen
on May 22. Breinholt and' tated that the were runnin a ainst the
clock. Breinholt ex laine
9/11 Closed by Statute

Cohn stated that

the ear was a worst-case scenario where the opportunity to deport disappears, criminal
charges do not materialize, and Abdullah succeeds in his habeas petition and is walking
the streets. Cohn and Breinholt acknowledged that the habeas Court gave no indication
that it was about to grant Abdullah's petition .

• 2
 ~/11 Law Enforcement Sensitive

~~e"'ET

• tl-Y¢%1s agents accomparied Abdullah to Yemen, and the agents were apparently
briefly arrested there. According to the agents, Abdullah complained about his luggage,
which had been lost, and the Y erneni officials at the airport told him that he would not
need luggage where he was goihs~\ But there appears to have been no official
coordination with the Yemenis.1 \,
II
I

9/11 Classified Information

At the conclusion of the meeting, Snell told the briefers that the Commission staff
is very concerned about the question whether Abdullah knowingly assisted hijackers
Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar and that the report likely will contain discussion
-of Abdullah's role and his jailhouse statements .

• 3