Summary: A Saudi graduate student at the University of Idaho is accused of operating Web sites and raising money and recruits for terrorists

A radical Saudi Arabian cleric took to the Internet with gusto four years ago to promote violent jihad, justify terrorist suicide missions and demonize the United States.

Federal agents now say he reached across the globe to this college town for help entering the Internet age, along with another radical cleric who was a favorite lecturer of Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network.

According to federal prosecutors, the clerics found their webmaster in a Saudi graduate student attending the University of Idaho. Sami Omar Al-Hussayen, 34, also was central to the work of two Islamic charities who used the Internet to recruit and raise money for terrorism, prosecutors say.

They say the lanky, soft-spoken Al-Hussayen has been conspiring to help terrorists since coming to the United States to study in 1994. Al-Hussayen has been indicted on charges of terrorism and immigration fraud, accused of working his considerable computer skills for a jihadist network stretching from Saudi Arabia to the United States, from Chechnya to the occupied territories.

The indictment says Al-Hussayen's efforts succeeded in inspiring Muslims to join the jihadist movement.

His trial opens Tuesday in Boise federal court in what is being viewed as one of the most significant terrorism cases in the country.

Al-Hussayen, whose defense is being funded by the Saudi government, has pleaded not guilty. Defense attorney David Nevin said that Al-Hussayen was exercising his rights to speech and religion. There is no evidence that Al-Hussayen advocated violence, Nevin said.

"He is a man of his word and is respected for his wisdom, kindness and gentle nature," Nevin said in court filings.

"He's not someone who believes in resorting to violence," Nevin told The Oregonian. "He didn't provide material support to terrorists. That's just simply false."

Since his arrest last year, Al-Hussayen has drawn sustained support from fellow Muslims, university officials and Moscow citizens. They held community dinners and cared for Al-Hussayen's wife and three young sons before they were deported to Saudi Arabia last month.

Al-Hussayen's brother, faculty advisers and a student Muslim leader testified shortly after his arrest that they were unaware of his ties to the two clerics. And they said they didn't know of Al-Hussayen's alleged work for a suspect Islamic charity or his transfers totaling $300,000 through six bank accounts he maintained in the United States.

In Idaho since 1999

Al-Hussayen, born to an upper middle class family in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, arrived in the United States in 1994 for computer studies. He attended universities in Indiana and Texas before transferring to the University of Idaho in 1999 for a doctorate in computer network security.

In Moscow, Al-Hussayen joined Muslim student groups and led the local mosque. He also continued helping an Islamic charity in Michigan and, according to the indictment, took on work for the two Saudi clerics and one of the largest Saudi charities.

Court filings say Al-Hussayen spent "at least tens of thousands of dollars" on computer equipment to support Web sites used by the clerics to promote jihad and by charities to recruit and fund terrorists.

Al-Hussayen also supported violent jihad in the occupied territories and in Chechnya, according to court filings. One Web site he set up soon after arriving in Moscow posted speeches and articles "justifying and glorifying violent jihad," according to the indictment.

He also operated an e-mail group that a prosecution affidavit said "includes some discussion that appears to relate to the recruitment of individuals to attend mujahedeen training camps where operatives are trained to carry out violent acts of terrorism around the globe."

The e-mail group grew to 2,400 and was used to explain how to get to a terrorist camp and to issue a call for information on U.S. military targets, according to court records.

Clerics aided by al-Qaida

Safar Al-Hawali and Salman Al-Oudah, known as the "Awakening Sheiks," have virulently opposed the United States since U.S. troops were staged in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. The two clerics advocated attacks on U.S. forces, a posture adopted by the terrorist group al-Qaida.

The two also were critical of the Saudi government, which jailed the clerics in 1994 in an attempt to silence them. That made them heroes to al-Qaida and bin Laden, who demanded their release in 1996 and supported killing Americans in the Middle East.

Two years later, an al-Qaida front group took credit for bombing two U.S. embassies in Africa. The group's communique demanded the release of Al-Oudah and Al-Hawali as conditions to stop more attacks. The Saudi government released the two in 1999.

That same year, the Internet came to Saudi Arabia, accompanied by strict government controls. The Internet flowed through a single government portal, allowing censorship according to government needs and strict adherence to Islamic standards. According to court records, work on the Web sites for the two clerics began the following year.

The FBI said it found phone numbers for both clerics in Al-Hussayen's personal phone directories. Court records show Al-Hussayen was in direct phone and e-mail contact with Al-Oudah and with intermediaries for Al-Hawali.

An FBI affidavit said an intercepted conversation showed Al-Hussayen "has tremendous respect for Al-Oudah" and the cleric was intercepted on the phone describing the Idaho man as the "manager" of his Web sites. In late 2002, according to the affidavit, Al-Oudah asked for a new Web site he could use to criticize the impending U.S. war in Iraq.

Messages from the two clerics appeared on their own Web sites and those associated with Islamic charities, prosecutors say. Al-Hussayen's help allowed the clerics to post religious pronouncements "indicating that it was Muslims' religious duty to kill non-Muslims, including civilian women and children, by tactics such as suicide bombings," according to a prosecution court filing.

Prosecutors cited a Web site article by one cleric calling for violent jihad against Israel and another suggesting using an airplane as a suicide weapon.

One Muslim student told the FBI last year that Al-Hussayen sold books and tapes of the two clerics from a Moscow apartment used as a social club by Muslim students. He said the material reflected extremist Islamic messages to "include the use of violence against those who do not convert to Islam," according to an FBI account of the student's statement.

The student said the meetings and materials "would have invited suspicion by the FBI or other law enforcement authorities due to the extreme nature of the content," according to the FBI affidavit.

Charity work

The student told the FBI that Al-Hussayen gave some of the profits from the informal bookstore to a charity called the Islamic Assembly of North America. Based in Michigan, the charity says it promotes Islam through conferences, books and education.

Al-Hussayen's attorney described him in a court filing as a volunteer for the charity and his support "included donation of funds and limited assistance with technical aspects of Web sites."

Prosecutors say the group supported terrorists through its Web sites, which "included a variety of material intended to recruit mujahedeen and raise funds for violent jihad." Al-Hussayen had "significant control over the operation and content" of the charity's Web site, according to the indictment.

For two years, one site urged donations to Hamas, the Palestinian militant group. The site also included a video that "appears to be a recruitment video for supporting the mujahedeen struggle in Chechnya," according to an FBI affidavit.

Telephone records showed "hundreds" of calls between Al-Hussayen and the charity's president, according to a search warrant affidavit.

Al-Hussayen routed to the charity more than $100,000, the affidavit said, that he received from his uncle, who is a high-ranking Saudi government official. Prosecutors say the Islamic Assembly also received donations from a leading Saudi banker suspected of being a principal al-Qaida financier and from two other Islamic charities in the United States that are now designated terrorist organizations as well as an anonymous $300,000 transfer from a Swiss account.

The Islamic Assembly also received support from one of the largest charities in Saudi Arabia -- Al Haramain Islamic Foundation.

Al Haramain contracted with Al-Hussayen for Web site work, according to the indictment. Prosecutors said that Al Haramain "offered support to terrorist groups and activities by virtue of the content of the Web sites it sponsored." Les Zaitz: 503-221-8181;leszaitz@news.oregonian.com