A suspected accomplice in a plot to bomb tunnels in New York City was questioned by RCMP for an entire day and remains under surveillance in Montreal, the Canadian Press has learned.
A source familiar with the investigation said the man is a friend of Assem Hammoud, pegged by U.S. authorities as a key figure in the purported scheme to flood lower Manhattan by blowing up commuter tunnels.
The 31-year-old Hammoud, who taught business ethics and human resources courses at a Beirut school, earned a commerce degree from Montreal's Concordia University four years ago after seven years of study in Canada.
Eight al-Qaeda-linked suspects, one of them reported to be a Canadian, had hoped to wage the attack on New York's tunnel system in October or November, U.S. officials say. But the plan had not progressed beyond the planning stages.
Three people, including Hammoud, have been arrested.
The Canadian was not named by authorities.
However, CP reported Friday that Canadian police questioned a man they suspected of active involvement in the alleged conspiracy. He was released because there wasn't enough evidence to hold him.
Still, sources say Canadian authorities are actively pursuing leads as part of a six-country investigation into the alleged plot.
Working with U.S. officials
A law-enforcement official said Monday that U.S. investigators continue to work with the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service on the case.
FBI Special Agent Richard Kolko was tight-lipped about Canadian connections, but hinted there might be more arrests.
"We are not discussing in any detail subjects who are not yet charged in this case because the investigation is ongoing," he said from Washington. "As in many investigations, we work closely with our Canadian law-enforcement and intelligence community partners to prevent any act of terrorism against people from both of our countries."
Montreal attracted a network of Islamic radicals in the 1990s, spawning an unsuccessful plot to attack Los Angeles International Aiport seven years ago. It is unclear whether Hammoud or his alleged Montreal associate have any links to known extremists from the city.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has refused to comment on any Canadian police work on the case. However, the law-enforcement source said Monday that Hammoud travelled to northern California on a family visit in 2000.
The source said Hammoud, in addition to supposedly plotting the New York assault, considered igniting brush fires in California. But the official rejected any link between Hammoud's visit and that scheme.
"I don't think they did anything more than talk about it."
Another source has said that despite reports Hammoud had travelled on a Canadian passport, he is not a Canadian citizen and that any such passport would have been a fake. Foreign Affairs and Citizenship officials cited the federal Privacy Act in refusing to discuss the case.
They could not say whether consideration had been given to using a provision of the privacy law that allows departments to discuss matters of public interest.
Beirut newspaper the Daily Star quoted a judicial source as ruling out any possibility that Lebanon would extradite Hammoud to the United States.
"Hammoud is a Lebanese citizen who will be tried in Lebanon and in accordance with Lebanese laws," the source told the paper.
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The Canadian Press
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