New Zealander seized in US terror alert

By PATRICK GOWER

An Auckland aircraft engineer believed to be Saddam Hussein's stepson has been arrested entering the United States on the eve of the Fourth of July security crackdown.

Mohammad Saffi, who has been living with his family in Glenfield, went to the US to attend a flight training school.

Federal agents seized him yesterday at a motel across the road from Miami International Airport, on the grounds that he had arrived without a student visa.

The FBI says one of the September 11 hijackers - Ziad Jarrah, suspected of commandeering United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a Pennsylvania field - attended the same flight school, Aeroservice Aviation Centre.

But authorities say they have no evidence Mr Saffi is connected to any terrorist group.

Mr Saffi, 36, who has been working as an Air New Zealand flight engineer, is a New Zealand citizen and has lived here for several years.

His arrest for visa irregularities made headlines across the US and came on the eve of July 4 - Independence Day - with authorities braced for further September 11-style terrorist attacks.



In December, a Weekend Herald investigation revealed that after the atrocities, Mr Saffi was subjected to an intense, multi-agency examination of his background and the vetting and checks made when Air New Zealand hired him.

The Herald has now also learned that authorities here have kept him under surveillance since his alleged relationship with the Iraqi despot was picked up in the post-September 11 security sweep.

New Zealand police last night confirmed that they had worked with US authorities over the arrest.

The national crime manager, Detective Superintendent Bill Bishop, said Mr Saffi was one of several people police had been monitoring and there had been other similar instances of co-operation with the US since the attacks.

Mr Saffi arrived in Los Angeles on a late flight from Auckland on Tuesday, then took an overnight flight to Miami, arriving yesterday morning and checking into the Comfort Inn that afternoon.

The Miami Herald reported that as he was returning to his room later, he was met by three agents of the American Immigration and Naturalisation Service and two FBI agents from the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force.

They drove him to the Krome detention facility, where he was interviewed and is being held until he is deported.

As a New Zealand citizen, he may be sent back here.

The United States does not require New Zealand citizens to obtain visas to travel to America, but they must obtain visas to study.

The US has toughened visa requirements for foreign citizens attending flight schools since the September 11 hijacked plane attacks on New York and Washington.

Some of the terrorists in the attacks, which killed about 3000 people, had trained at Florida flight schools.

Mr Saffi's family told the Herald they had not heard from him since his arrest. They found out about his fate through a phone call from international media and did not want to comment further.

The Miami Herald said Mr Saffi was in Miami to take a four-day, mandatory, refresher course at a flight school located within the airport.

When interviewed, he said he could not remember the school's name, but believed it was Pan Am Flight Training.

Investigators said they became suspicious when he decided to attend flight training during the Fourth of July weekend - a time when few people are working. They wondered why he had flown to Miami when he could have gone somewhere closer to New Zealand.

"The circumstances are somewhat disturbing," Jim Goldman, the chief of immigration investigations, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

"It's an awful long way to come to take a refresher course. Post 9-11, an individual such as this definitely comes on our radar screen."

South Florida federal agents have been sensitive since the September 11 attacks after they learned that 14 of the 19 hijackers that ploughed planes into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon and into a Pennsylvania field had trained and lived in the area.

The Weekend Herald investigation in December found that Mr Saffi, who has been here since at least 1997, worked in a secure area at Air NZ and flew on aircraft.

The airline said at the time that it had vetted him and found him to be clear.

Air NZ last night refused to confirm that it still employed Mr Saffi, but he is still listed on its telephone directory.

The airline also refused to comment on whether the course was official business, but the Miami Post reported that a pilot who was a US citizen accompanied Mr Saffi from Auckland to Miami but was questioned and released.

The task force that arrested Mr Saffi has been tracking countless leads and tips, including backgrounding some members of mosques and checking the logs of all flight schools in Florida.

Mr Bishop, who leaves for London in 10 days to take up an anti-terrorism liaison post, said Mr Saffi was one of several people police had been monitoring and it was not the first time there had been "activity" with US authorities.

He refused to comment when asked if it was the first arrest of its kind.

Asked how many similar individuals police had been monitoring, he replied: "These things are all linked to security issues and it would be naive of us to comment."

He would not comment when asked if Mr Saffi posed a threat to New Zealand security.

"Clearly we have security issues to manage in New Zealand, and to comment on individuals just after they have been arrested, to say what sort of threat they represented to us - if indeed they did represent a threat - would be leaping a bit."

He said Mr Saffi was a New Zealand citizen and could be deported here or to another country.

The police had no concerns about his being deported back to NZ.

Mother link to Saddam

The mother of Mohammad Saffi is the tie that links the Auckland flight engineer to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

A woman understood to be Mohammad Saffi's mother, Samira Shahbandar, is reported to have been married to Saddam after a relationship that began in the 1980s.

Mr Saffi's parents are believed to be Samira Shahbandar, a former flight attendant, and Nor Aldin Saffi, who was a high-ranking official within the Government-owned Iraqi Airways.

Various sources, including the Washington Post, say Mrs Shahbandar became Saddam's mistress in the late 1980s. A biography of Saddam and other sources, including London's Daily Telegraph, say the pair were married.

A judgment issued by the British Law Lords regarding a court case between the Iraqi and Kuwaiti airlines last year named Nor Aldin Saffi as a director-general of Iraqi Airways, though it is understood he no longer holds this position.

An official from a Washington-based opposition group, the Iraqi National Congress, said Mrs Shahbandar was Saddam's mistress before they married in 1986.

Reports from the United States said the relationship had caused problems with Saddam's extended family.

Uday Hussein, Saddam's eldest son by his first wife, was reportedly enraged about the affair.

The Middle East Review of International Affairs said Uday murdered one of Saddam's bodyguards because he acted as a messenger between the President and his mistress.

In December Mr Saffi dismissed as a rumour reports that his mother was married to Saddam.

He said he was considering going overseas, but maintained this had nothing to do with the attention from the authorities.

"They have the right to ask any time they want. I don't have a problem at all. I do work in a secure area. I do fly with the aeroplanes as well."

The NZ Immigration Service says residency applicants are required to declare names of close relatives, including step-parents and siblings.

A spokesman would not say if Mr Saffi had declared a relationship with Hussein.