A Germ Warfare Guru Goes Free

The son of a rubber tapper, Sufaat studied at Malaysia's prestigious Royal Military College and won a scholarship to California State University in Sacramento, where he earned a degree in biological sciences in 1987. Upon returning to Malaysia, he founded a profitable laboratory analysis company. Sometime in the early 1990s—reportedly at the insistence of his wife—he became increasingly devout. He began spending time with militant Islamic teachers and soon became a devoted and committed follower of Jemaah Islamiah and its radical leader, Hambali (he's known by just the one name).

According to the U.S. government's 9/11 Commission report, in January 2000, two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, visited Kuala Lumpur, the Malaysian capital, for what amounted to a planning meeting for the September 2001 attacks. At Hambali's request, Sufaat made his apartment available for the meeting. One of the other participants was Walid bin-Attash, known as Khallad, a Qaeda operative who planned the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. He was later captured and charged as a 9/11 co-conspirator. Khallad told U.S. interrogators that, while staying at Sufaat's apartment, he and Alhazmi talked "about the possibility of hijacking planes and crashing them or holding passengers as hostages."

Later in 2000, Sufaat hosted a visit to Kuala Lumpur by another figure linked to the 9/11 hijackers: Zacharias Moussaoui, the wayward and eccentric would-be terrorist from France who the US government claimed was going to be a 9/11 hijacker. Captured 9/11 participants subsequently said Moussaoui was considered too erratic by Al-Qaeda's leaders to participate in the plot.

The 9/11 Commission report also details Sufaat's efforts to make weapons for Al Qaeda. The terror group's leaders sought Hambali's help in finding a scientist to "take over" Al Qaeda's biological-weapons program. Hambali introduced Sufaat to Osama bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. In 2001, the report says, Sufaat spent "several months attempting to cultivate anthrax for Al Qaeda in a laboratory" he helped set up near the Kandahar airport in Afghanistan.

The Malaysians's release of Sufaat points up the difficulties the outgoing Bush administration and incoming Obama team face in pressing foreign governments—friendly and not so friendly—to keep Islamic militants off the streets, or at least under close surveillance.

© 2008