http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-586705,00.html
THE Oxfordshire village of Kingston Blount is picture-postcard perfect, with thatched cottages and red telephone boxes. There are songbirds in every hedgerow. It is also, according to John Ashcroft, the US Attorney-General, home to a terrorist mastermind. Yesterday the people of Kingston Blount awoke to the news that the bespectacled family man who lives in a cul-de-sac off the high street had been charged in the US with 50 counts of supporting and financing Islamic Jihad, the Palestinian terrorist group that has murdered more than 100 people in Israel.
"We all noticed the family when they moved in, because we don't get many Muslims around here," a tradesman said. "There were a few jokes about how they might be harbouring bin Laden. But we really didn't expect anything like this. He just doesn't seem the sort."
Nobody, it seems, was more surprised than the suspect himself, Dr Basheer Musa Mohammed Nafi, 50, a quietly-spoken father-of-three who lectures in Islamic Studies at London University. Inviting reporters in for a cup of tea, he said: "I first heard about it when a newspaper rang me. It's absurd. I have no idea how I could be linked to terrorists. This whole story has been fabricated due to the situation in America, and it is terrible for my family. My kids and my wife have been left so upset. I teach Muslim world history, and I try to lead a normal family life."
Dr Nafi's Manchester-born wife Imelda, 47, is a convert to Islam who kept her hair covered with a hijab as she sat close to her husband yesterday, protesting his innocence. "I can't believe all this is happening," she said. "I keep thinking that I'll wake up in a couple of days and it will all have gone away. These allegations are completely untrue."
Dr Nafi, who was born in Egypt, came to this country in 1983, married four years later, and lectures at Birkbeck College, and the Muslim College in Ealing, West London.On Thursday he was charged by a grand jury in Florida, along with seven other men, following an investigation into Islamic radicals clustered around the University of South Florida in Tampa. The US indictment describes him as a founder of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, its leader in Britain and a member of its worldwide governing shura council, partly on the basis of telephone conversations he had with other accused people over a period of years.
His aliases are said to be Ahmed, Abu Mohammed and Basheer Musa, according to the indictment against the men. He used his British passport to enter the US on several occasions. He was ordered to be deported from that country in 1996.
The indictment accuses Palestinian Islamic Jihad of being behind a series of suicide bombings against Israeli targets and orders the assets of those accused to be seized on the ground that it is a "foreign terrorist organisation" under US law. Mr Nafi is accused of involvement in multiple murders, extortions, money laundering, funding terrorist groups, fraud and misuse of visas and other documents.
Four of the suspects, living in Florida and Chicago, were arrested by FBI agents on Thursday, and extradition warrants are being issued for the others, who live in Beirut, Damascus, the Gaza Strip — and Kingston Blount.
In Florida, Sami al-Arian, a Palestinian professor at the University of South Florida, was seen being led in handcuffs to FBI headquarters in Tampa after his arrest. He is described as Islamic Jihad's US leader and secretary of its worldwide council.
The indictment accuses all eight of running a racketeering enterprise that has supported Palestinian Islamic Jihad since 1984; conspiracy to kill and maim; conspiracy to provide material support to the group; extortion; and perjury. It reveals details of intercepted telephone calls and faxes in which the suspects are said to have discussed bombings, financial problems and whether to ally themselves more closely with the terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. There is no mention of al-Qaeda.
The eight are alleged to have talked in code of the tens of thousands of pounds which they are said to have moved around the world for Islamic Jihad.
Dr Nafi is known to MI5, but yesterday there was some surprise about the American case against him. "We'll have to wait and see what the United States has to say about this case," a security source said.
While denying the charges yesterday, Dr Nafi did accept that he had lectured at the University of South Florida, and that he had been associated with some of the other suspects. He insisted yesterday that he had become a target because of his association with others. "You're a friend of someone, who is a friend of someone, and that's how it starts," he said. "I'm not associated with any political organisation anywhere. I believe in Palestinian national rights, but I'm just an academic."
Dr Gwen Griffiths-Dickson, director of Islamic Studies at Birkbeck, said: "Dr Nafi is a highly respected and valued member of the academic team. He is a specialist in the Islamic history of ideas, covering a broad range of thinkers. Dr Nafi has taken an analytical and scholarly approach to the study of Islam. He has sought to encourage critical thinking about religious issues, and academic balance in his students, and thus to encourage social responsibility."