American Muslim Council Leader in Assassination Plot
Last year Abdurahman Alamoudi, the founder of the American Muslim Council, was caught trying to smuggle $340,000 in cash from Libya’s Jihad Fund, and arrested. Newsweek also reported that in the fall of 2000, Alamoudi had meetings with Mohammed Belfas, a “spiritual leader” from the Hamburg Islamic community who had multiple ties to key figures in the September 11 terror attacks.
Today the New York Times reports that Alamoudi was a very busy moderate Islamic leader indeed; in plea negotiations he told investigators he was involved in a Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia: Two Are Said to Tell of Libyan Plot to Kill Saudi Ruler. (Hat tip: J.D.)
WASHINGTON, June 9 — While the Libyan leader, Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, was renouncing terrorism and negotiating the lifting of sanctions last year, his intelligence chiefs ordered a covert operation to assassinate the ruler of Saudi Arabia and destabilize the oil-rich kingdom, according to statements by two participants in the conspiracy.
Those participants, Abdurahman Alamoudi, an American Muslim leader now in jail in Alexandria, Va., and Col. Mohamed Ismael, a Libyan intelligence officer in Saudi custody, have given separate statements to American and Saudi officials outlining the plot.
Mr. Alamoudi, has told Federal Bureau of Investigation officials and federal prosecutors that Colonel Qaddafi approved the assassination plan. Mr. Qaddafi’s son, in an interview in London, called the accusation “nonsense.”
American officials confirm that Mr. Alamoudi and Mr. Ismael have offered detailed accounts of a Libyan plot to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah and that they appear to be credible enough to have launched an American investigation. But the officials said they are still examining the scope of the plot, how far it advanced and whether Colonel Qaddafi was involved. They said the accusations were one reason the United States had not removed Libya from the State Department’s list of nations that support terrorism.