UW employee detained; father blames Saudis

By Mike Carter
Seattle Times staff reporter

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Majid al-Massari, 34, a Saudi national and an employee of the UW School of Nursing, was arrested July 17 by agents from the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for investigation of immigration violations.

FBI agents with the Seattle Joint Terrorism Task Force seized computers from al-Massari's office and his University District home, according to federal sources. One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said agents are translating hundreds of e-mails in Arabic between al-Massari and his father.

Dr. Muhammad al-Massari, 57, speaking from his home in London yesterday, said his eldest son's arrest coincides with his own stepped-up efforts to topple the Saudi Arabian government through what he calls "political and intellectual jihad."

Majid al-Massari's Seattle attorney, Cheryl Nance, said her client had applied for asylum in the U.S. in 1997. He did so, she said, after the Saudi government tortured his brother and targeted his father, who had fled Saudi Arabia the previous year.

Nance explained that people who apply for asylum are allowed to stay in the country legally until their situation is resolved.

The U.S. is now trying to expel Majid al-Massari, apparently believing he poses "some sort of terrorist threat," Nance said.

She dismissed any notion that her client is anything more than outspoken. "He fears persecution by the Saudi government," Nance said. "He has a legitimate asylum claim."

He had a misdemeanor drug conviction in 2003, and Nance said that's what immigration agents are citing as a reason to deport him. "But I don't believe this has anything to do with drugs," she said. "They are treating him like he's a terrorist."

Nance said that, after his arrest, Majid al-Massari was held for six days before being allowed to contact her. She has represented him for nearly seven years. He had worked at the UW for three years.

"They have ignored him and his asylum claim until now. I have to wonder why," she said.
 
Majid al-Massari, who is being held at the federal detention center in SeaTac, is scheduled to appear before an immigration judge tomorrow in Seattle, said Greg Gagne, a spokesman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review in Washington, D.C. He said the hearing likely will be closed to the public.

The senior al-Massari, a former Saudi diplomat and physicist who fled the country in the mid-1990s to become one of the royal family's most virulent critics, said the close ties between the U.S. government and Saudi Arabia are at the heart of his son's immigration troubles.

"I must confess there can be no other reason," said al-Massari, who was posted in Denver for 2-1/2 years in the 1980s as an educational attaché, according to news reports.

He said the Saudi government tried to pressure Great Britain into deporting him in 1996.

At that time, then-Home Office Minister Ann Widdecombe publicly acknowledged the pressure, saying al-Massari's presence in London had "complicated" billions of dollars in trade with the Saudis. A public outcry resulted in al-Massari being allowed to remain in London.

In recent months, the senior al-Massari said, he and his group — called the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights — have stepped up their oral attacks on the Saudi regime, calling for Muslims to depose the royals and replace them with a fundamentalist Islamic government.

Majid al-Massari had been a regular guest on London-based anti-Saudi radio talk shows and posted regularly on Internet discussion groups, his father said.

Muhammad al-Massari acknowledges there may be other reasons for increased scrutiny of himself and his family. He acknowledged yesterday a long relationship with an al-Qaida sympathizer named Mustafa al-Ansari, who led an attack on a Saudi petrochemical plant in Yanbu in May that left two Americans, two Britons and an Australian dead. They were employees of a Houston firm.

He also said he was "acquainted" with Abdurahman Alamoudi, who pleaded guilty last week in Washington, D.C., to being involved in a Libyan-funded plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz. Al-Massari denied any involvement in the scheme.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com