In 1997, Canadian intelligence begins investigating Abdullah Almalki, a Canadian exporter originally from Syria. Almalki is working with Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi and Abdelrahman Elzahabi, who are brothers and business partners, to send electronic equipment to Pakistan. Around 1995, the three of them sent large numbers of portable field radios to Pakistan. Apparently, some of them are used by Taliban and al-Qaeda forces (the US will later recover many field radios of the same make and model in Afghanistan after 9/11). However, there is no law against exporting the radios, and investigators are unable to prove any crime was committed. Abdelrahman is working in New York City as a mechanic while Mohamad Kamal is working in Boston as a taxi driver. Three other taxi drivers at the same company are al-Qaeda operatives who knew each other and Mohamad Kamal in Afghanistan (see Late 1980s and June 1995-Early 1999), and he will later admit to being a sniper instructor at the Khaldan training camp in Afghanistan in the early 1990s. The FBI in Boston begins investigating him in 1999, but fails to prove he is a terrorist. They lose track of him when he leaves the US later that year to fight the Russians in Chechnya. The FBI later discovers him driving trucks in Minnesota and arrests him for lying to federal agents about his knowledge of the field radios (see Mid-August 2001). [Globe and Mail, 3/17/2007] It seems probable that the investigation of Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi strengthens suspicions about a Boston al-Qaeda cell. One of his associates at the taxi company, Raed Hijazi, works as an FBI informant starting in 1997 (see Early 1997-Late 1998]), and another, Nabil al-Marabh, is questioned by the FBI in 1999 (see April 1999-August 1999). Almalki is later arrested in Syria while visiting relatives there and severely tortured before eventually being released and returned to Canada (see September 19 or 20, 2003).
Between April and May 14, 2002: Zubaida Associate Threatened with Pictures of Zubaida Hurt by Torture
Omar Ghramesh had been captured in a house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, at the same time as al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida (see March 28, 2002). He is temporarily held in Pakistan and while there he is shown pictures of Zubaida looking battered and bruised. He is told, “If you don’t talk, this is what will happen to you.” It is not clear if he is in US or Pakistani custody at this time, as the arrest of Zubaida and his associates was a joint US-Pakistani operation. But Ghramesh does not talk, and on May 14, 2002, he and two others will be renditioned to a torture center in Syria called the Palestine Branch. There, Ghramesh will meet Abdullah Almalki, a dual Syrian and Canadian citizen who has also been renditioned to Syria to be tortured, and he will tell Almalki the account of being shown the pictures of Zubaida. [Grey, 2007, pp. 4, 54, 284] Almalki will later be found innocent of all terrorist ties and let go. [Grey, 2007, pp. 4, 54, 284] Then, in 2006, he will tell the account of the Zubaida photos to journalist Stephen Grey. There is no sign Ghramesh has been freed. [Grey, 2007, pp. 4, 54, 284] In late 2007, it will be reported that all videotapes of Zubaida’s interrogation were destroyed (see November 2005), but Ghramesh’s account suggests there may be surviving photos.
