Fugitive Ujaama arrested in Belize

James Ujaama, a Seattle man who pleaded guilty to conspiring to aid the Taliban, was arrested as a fugitive in Belize early Monday, after fleeing the U.S. and violating his parole.

Ujaama, 41, fought with officers when they arrested him outside a Belize mosque shortly after midnight, police spokesman G. Michael Reid said. One officer suffered minor injuries, Reid said.

Ujaama was traveling under the name "Ramirez Ramirez" on a Mexican passport and had arrived in Belize "about 10 days ago," Reid said.

Ujaama faces up to eight years in prison.

Officers staked out the mosque Friday after receiving information from Interpol, the international criminal police organization based in Lyon, France, that Ujaama was in the area, he said.

"We do not believe that Belize was his final destination," Reid said. "We have reason to believe he was attempting to travel into Central America. From there, we do not know what his plans were."

Peter Offenbecher, one of Ujaama's Seattle defense attorneys, said only that he was "investigating the facts" surrounding Ujaama's arrest.

Ujaama's plea agreement bans him from having a passport or leaving the country without permission from the U.S. Department of Justice.

Ujaama appeared Tuesday before a U.S. magistrate in Miami, agreeing to return to Seattle to answer charges that he had violated his supervised release, said Alicia Valle, the special counsel to the U.S. attorney in the Southern District of Florida.

Ujaama was sentenced to two years of what could have been a maximum 10-year prison term after pleading guilty in Seattle to charges that he provided computers, cash and fighters to the illegal Taliban government in Afghanistan before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Ujaama's grandmother, Noemi Nelson, said Tuesday that she thought he left Seattle "some time ago." She said Ujaama had gone to visit his brother in Denver and "then just didn't come back."

She said she was not aware that Ujaama had been arrested Monday. Ujaama lived with Nelson after his release from federal prison in 2004.

When U.S. District Judge Barbara Rothstein sentenced Ujaama in February 2004, she said she was giving him an "unusually light" prison term in exchange for his cooperation.

Ujaama's testimony is considered key in prosecuting several alleged terrorists, including Abu Hamza al-Masri, a London cleric who lost his hands and an eye allegedly fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

Abu Hamza was indicted in 2004 in New York for conspiring with Ujaama and others to set up a terrorist training camp near Bly, Ore., in 1999. The charges also claim Abu Hamza was involved in a kidnapping in Yemen in 1998 that left four foreign hostages dead.

Ujaama is a key witness in the prosecution of two other men: Haroon Aswat, of London, and Oussama Kassir, of Sweden. Both were indicted on charges alleging they came from London to Seattle to meet Ujaama and then traveled to Oregon to scout the Bly property.

Earlier this month, Aswat lost an appeal in Britain and faces extradition to the U.S. Aswat was questioned about telephone calls he made that may be connected to the July 7, 2005, London train bombings that left 52 people dead.

Ujaama was a confidante of Abu Hamza and designed and ran the Web site for a Finsbury Park mosque in London where Abu Hamza was imam.

The mosque was a major al-Qaida recruitment center and had been attended by Richard Reid, who attempted to blow up an American Airlines jet with a shoe bomb on Dec. 22, 2001, and by Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man convicted in connection with the 9/11 attacks.

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