A Muslim FBI agent, twice accused of refusing to tape-record conversations
with terrorism financing suspects, has been suspended and ordered back to
the United States from the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia.
FBI officials declined Monday to comment. The suspension of agent Gamal
Abdel-Hafiz was first reported last week by ABC News.
The former lead investigator into the possible terrorist ties of fired
University of South Florida Professor Sami Al-Arian said Abdel-Hafiz hurt
that inquiry by refusing to record a conversation with the professor in 1998.
Al-Arian, indicted Feb. 20 on charges of helping to finance and run the
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, had pressed Abdel- Hafiz for details about the
case when the two met at a conference in Washington, said the former
investigator, Barry Carmody.
He asked Abdel-Hafiz to follow up the encounter with a secretly recorded
telephone call, Carmody said Monday. Abdel-Hafiz refused. He'd talk to
Al-Arian, he said, but he wouldn't record the conversation without
Al-Arian's knowledge.
``That's outrageous,'' Carmody said. ``That defeats the whole purpose.''
Federal agents in Chicago claim Abdel-Hafiz did the same thing in a
separate case two years later. Carmody and his Chicago counterparts
complained to FBI headquarters. Despite that, Abdel-Hafiz became the FBI's
legal attache at the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Carmody said the suspension was ``long overdue. I don't think he should
have gone to Riyadh in the first place.''
In the Chicago case, Abdel- Hafiz would not allow colleagues to eavesdrop
on a conversation with a terrorist financing suspect, said Mark Flessner, a
former assistant U.S. attorney leading the investigation. Abdel-Hafiz said
he would not secretly record a fellow Muslim, Flessner said.
``I was shocked to hear that an FBI agent wouldn't participate in an
undercover investigation for religious reasons,'' Flessner said Monday.
``That's just not an option.''
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGA5KRPEVCD.html
