Weekly Terrorism Spotlight

Volume 1, Issue 7 (April 28)

INSIDE THIS ISSUE:

Florida Islamic student terror case widens

A Muslim terrorist tipster cop avoids jail for use of police database to blow a whistle on FBI probe of fellow mosque member

Fairfax County Police Department Sgt. Mohammad Weiss Rasool may continue on the job, reinstated after leave with pay, after an Alexandria federal judge gave probation for helping a fellow mosque member know he was an FBI target.

U.S. Judge Barry R Poretz gave Rasool two years supervised probation and a $1,000 fine, ruling Rasool’s use of a police database to tip off his Islamic friend did not put investigators at risk, and the un-named friend was caught and convicted of terrorist activity anyway.

“It was an error in judgement,” Rasool said. “I never intended for things to turn out this way…I admit I made errors in judgment…I never intended to put anybody’s life at risk.”

Rasool said he hoped to remain with the department, and a misdemeanor conviction does not automatically disqualify him; he remains on paid administrative leave pending an internal probe.

Prosecutors pushed for active jail time, wanting even the maximum guideline jail term of six months to be expanded to a full year, because of what they deemed a lacking honesty on Rasool’s part.

FBI agents, prosecutors said, “do not believe he has been truthful…{and} was not fully compliant,” with lie-detector test procedures during their investigation.

In a statement of facts in the case, prosecutors said Rasool, from Afghanistan, used the police dispatch database to access the Virginia Criminal Information Network on June 10, 2005.

He did it to “obtain information on three separate vehicles by checking their license plate numbers,” prosecutors stated, then give the information to an individual later convicted on terrorist charges.

Rasool “Through his experience had a basis to believe that the leasing company [for the vehicles] was used for federal law enforcement,” prosecutors said.

The federal investigators were indeed in the area Rasool found them in order to monitor the man and strengthen an ongoing case against him.

Rasool’s phone call to the man the FBI was after was intercepted, and was made a part of the case against him, with an allegation that prior conversations and coded references were context for a seemingly benign conversation between them.

Prosecutors also said Rasool repeatedly checked his and other names in the database. “The defendant did this in an attempt to determine if he or others were registered with the Violent Crime and Terrorist Offender File,” part of the database, they said.

Rasool countered through lawyers that he did not refer to the terrorist portion of the database, and he did not use some code or pre-arranged warning term to tip off his friend.

“Six weeks after receiving Officer Rasool’s message, he target was arrested without incident,” Rasool’s statement said. “He was subsequently convicted and deported.”

The transcript of the conversation included the following, according to court records:

“This is Weiss. You spoke to me after the Juma prayer today; I’m the police officer. Umm, as I told you, I can only tell you if it comes back to a person or not a person and all three vehicles did not come back to an individual person. So, I just wanted to give you that much. Uhh, okay. Hope things work out for you. Enshullah!”

Defendant attorneys argued Rasool had no prior association with the man, did not know he was an FBI “target,’ and did not maintain any affiliation afterward.

They added, “he ran himself and his family outside the scope of his authorized access…out of fear that they might be improperly listed,” in reference to the terrorism data list.

Because Rasool’s patrol included the mosque area where the FBI vehicles were run, and he checked them during his work hours, prosecutors could not make a case of improperly checking the vehicles themselves.

Rasool’s lawyers said he had a reason to check them because they were out of place in the neighborhood of his mosque.

Rasool entered a plea bargain on the misdemeanor offense of improperly using the database to check his and other personal information.

Court records did not indicate if the man who was the subject of the FBI probe had been suspected as a member of a conspiracy, or cell, or if other subjects [cell members] might have benefited by Rasool’s tip-off who were never apprehended.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeanine Linehan said the man and his family were dressed - destroying evidence at 6 a.m., as agents arrived to make the arrest - a sign they had been tipped off.

The target's name and the charges against him have not been disclosed.

The FBI confronted Rasool in October 2007about his computer inquiries on the man's behalf.

According to Linehan’s brief, Rasool denied knowing the man. When presented with the recording of his message for the man, Rasool admitted checking the databases.

Defense attorneys filed more than a dozen character reference letters on behalf of Rasool, plus commendations noting his meritorious work with the department.