Close readers of Talk Islam would be unsurprised to hear that three Afghan Asians have been arrested for making false statement to the FBI in a terror probe. I posted this recommendation from the Asian law caucus last month:
Federal Criminal Code 1001 makes it a crime to lie to an FBI agent, and that code is now being used to recklessly incarcerate people, said Dubal. “We tell people its better not to talk to an FBI agent, because if you do and you misrepresent yourself, you could be subject to criminal penalty.”
In a comment in the previous post, Talk Islam contributor Abu Noor, an attorney in Chicago, says that’s his advice too.
However, it sounds like the central target of the probe, Najibullah Zazi, lied pretty substantially to the FBI so I can’t say I’m sympathetic. The other two sound like well-intentioned family and friends of Zazi who are now facing eight years in prison, which seems like a punishment that goes far beyond the ‘crime.’ Here’s the description:
An arrest warrant affidavit says FBI agents intercepted a phone conversation around Sept. 11 in which Afzali told the younger Zazi that he had spoken with authorities. “I was exposed to something yesterday from the authorities. And they came to ask me about your characters. They asked me about you guys,” Afzali told Zazi, according to the affidavit.
However Afzali allegedly lied to authorities about that conversation when federal agents asked him about it Thursday, according to the affidavit.
The department says Mohammed Zazi, who was interviewed last week by the FBI, lied when asked if he knew anyone by the name of Afzali and said he didn’t. The FBI said it had wiretapped a conversation between Mohammed Zazi and Afzali during Najibullah Zazi’s visit to New York.