Indian passenger arrested at Houston airport with jihadist books, a weapon

Houston: A passenger from Mumbai, India was sweating and shifting back and forth and fidgeting with his hands as he stood in line at the Intercontinental Airport Terminal E security checkpoint.
When 40-year-old Vijay Kumar was pulled aside for secondary screening, after raising suspicion with Transportation Security Administration 'behavioral detection officers,' even more alarm was raised by what was found.
One law enforcement officer said, "He had a ton of books," including jihadist books and publications written in Arabic. Some focused on espionage and other diagrams seemed to explain how certain US military weapons can be taken apart in the field.
The title of one book was "Spycraft" and another was titled "New Voices of Islam" and police noticed mentions of "infidels" in some of the writings that could be made out clearly.
The books and radical Muslim material was found in stacks, packed in Kumar's carry-on luggage, according to the police report.
Officers also found a pair of brass-knuckles in the luggage he had checked with his airline to be carried in the cargo hold of the aircraft. In Texas, brass-knuckles are prohibited by law so he was booked on a felony charge of Possessing a Prohibited Weapon in a Prohibited Place (airport).
FBI agents were called to the secondary screening area where Kumar was being detained. Agents are now checking his name on terror watch lists and 'no fly' lists, but there is no indication that his name has appeared on any of those lists.
In addition to the brass knuckles and the jihadist publications, police confiscated more than $10,000 in cash that Kumar is accused of carrying on his trip.
Federal law requires anyone carrying $10,000 or more to declare the currency to Customs agents, but law enforcement officials said there was no such declaration for Kumar.
Police and FBI agents said they were turning their attention to Kumar's background and what he was doing in Houston.
Kumar told police he was in Houston attending an "Islamic seminar." A search of federal court records in Houston shows a 2007 lawsuit filed by a man with the same name, same age, and same hometown as Kumar. In that lawsuit, Kumar described himself as a native and citizen of India, who was admitted to the United STates in 2004 on a student visa to the University of Connecticut.
The lawsuit said he had earlier studied at Texas Tech University after entering the US in 2003. He then transferred to University of Connecticut, where the lawsuit said he earned an MBA degree to bolster his undergraduate engineering degree.
The lawsuit said he married a US citizen in 2004 and he filed to change his immigration status to allow him to remain in the US past his student visa in 2005.
It was unclear Friday night whether federal agents would be placing a "hold" on Kumar, which would keep him locked up while further investigation is conducted.
21/08/10 examiner.com, US

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Categories: airports aug 2010, Foreign Aug 2010