KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Khalid Ouazzani had been a U.S. citizen for less than a year when the Kansas City auto parts dealer decided to take out a loan, saying he needed it for his business.
Instead, he wired nearly $113,000 to a bank account in the United Arab Emirates to buy an apartment there, then eventually began funneling money to al-Qaida, the 32-year-old Morocco native admitted Wednesday.
Ouazzani pleaded guilty to bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to provide financial support to a terrorist organization and now faces up to 65 years in federal prison. He admitted he sent $23,500 to al-Qaida between August 2007 and mid-2008.
Prosecutors said Ouazzani — who became a permanent U.S. resident in 2004 and a citizen in June 2006 — provided false information to obtain a $175,000 line-of-credit commercial loan in April 2007 to run his business, Truman Used Auto Parts. A little more than a year later, he sold the apartment he had bought with some of that money, leaving him with a $17,000 profit, which was sent by a co-conspirator to al-Qaida, court records say.
Court records also show that in August 2007 Ouazzani agreed to send al-Qaida $6,500 through a co-conspirator, who paid the money on his behalf. Ouazzani repaid the unnamed co-conspirator in November 2007 through a wire transfer to a bank account in the United Arab Emirates, court records show.
U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips said the $6,500 came from the sale of his business. She declined to comment on the co-conspirator or say how long Ouazzani had been in Kansas City.
Phillips said Ouazzani swore an oath of allegiance to al-Qaida and talked with others about ways to support al-Qaida, including plans for them to fight in Afghanistan, Iraq or Somalia. But he never posed a threat to the Kansas City area, she said.
“At no point prior to his arrest was he any threat to cause imminent harm or danger to the citizens of our community,” Phillips said at a news conference.
Going back to the 1990s, public records indicate Ouazzani listed numerous addresses in Kansas City and St. Louis, as well in Brooklyn, N.Y., Forest Hills, N.Y., and Cherry Hill, N.J. It was not clear how much time, if any, Ouazzani spent in those cities.
Dennis Hogan, who rented a salvage yard building to Ouazzani for his auto parts business, said Ouazzani owes him about $17,000 in back rent.
“I’m shocked and stunned, but I’m not surprised because he was such a low-life,” Hogan told The Associated Press. “Once he got in, he stopped paying his bills almost immediately.”
Hogan said that when he first met Ouazzani, he asked him if he was a terrorist, then immediately regretted the question.
“He looked at me and seemed real taken aback, and he said, ‘Are you?'” Hogan said.
Mustafa Hussein, director of the Islamic Society of Greater Kansas City, said Ouazzani’s wife came to the center after her husband was arrested in February and asked if the center could help him. Hussein told her that if the charges were politically motivated, there are organizations that could help, but “if he’s guilty, there’s nothing we can do.”
“She was crying, very upset,” Hussein said. “She did not come back to talk about it.”
Hussein, who acknowledged that he knew Ouazzani only through brief encounters at the center or mosque, said Ouazzani seemed like a normal family man and didn’t show any signs of extremism.
Ouazzani’s attorneys said their client was sorry for his actions and he was ready to pay the consequences.
Ouazzani has “acknowledged the wrongfulness of his acts,” Overland Park, Kan., attorneys Robin Fowler and Tricia Tenpenny said in a statement.
“He deeply regrets what he has done, and is taking steps to atone, to the extent he can, for his crimes. He will continue to do so,” the statement read. They declined to provide further details.
A sentencing date has not been set.
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Associated Press Writer Maria Sudekum Fisher contributed to this report.
