Legal News

Relative of Afghan militant arrested for perjury and naturalization fraud, claims blackmail

By Richard Binder

A Tustin man of Afghan origin, who failed to mention in his application for U.S. citizenship that his brother-in-law is designated as an Al Qaeda terrorist, appeared in federal court Friday to answer charges that could send him to prison for 35 years.

Ahmadullah Sais Niazi's detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana was postponed until Tuesday, but the 34-year-old defendant used the occasion to accuse federal agents of trying to force him to become an informant.

Federal agents descended Friday at dawn on the tract home in Tustin where Niazi has lived for at least eight years with his wife and three young children. He submitted quietly to the arrest, and stunned neighbors watched for three hours as agents, some in body armor, searched the single-story house for evidence that Niazi lied to government officials about his background and foreign travel.

A five-count grand jury indictment, handed up a week ago and kept under seal until Friday, charged Niazi with two counts of perjury and one count each of naturalization fraud, misuse of a passport obtained by fraud and making a false statement to a federal agency.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 23, 2009 (boomark / email).