The Philippine authorities said on Tuesday that they were deporting two American brothers arrested for suspected links to terrorism. One of the men worked until 2000 for the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the laboratory said.
A spokesman for the laboratory, a major nuclear weapons facility near San Francisco, said that the FBI had been examining whether the former employee, Michael Ray Stubbs, 55, had access to sensitive information there in the course of his work as a heating and air conditioning technician.
An FBI agent in San Francisco, Chris McDonough, said that the bureau was "assisting in the investigation" by the Philippine authorities but "does not have any charges pending" against either Stubbs or his brother, Jamil Daoud Mujahid, 56, a convert to Islam. The two men were arrested on Dec. 13 in the town of Tanza in Cavite province, 34km southwest of Manila, according to the Philippine bureau of immigration.
Philippine officials said that Mujahid, also known as James Stubbs, had met with members of the Abu Sayyaf Muslim extremist group, as well as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front separatist movement, two groups loosely linked by Philippine officials to al-Qaeda.
Both men denied any wrongdoing when they appeared in handcuffs at a news conference in Manila on Tuesday. But a Philippine official said that the US government was concerned that Michael Ray Stubbs may have passed sensitive information from Lawrence Livermore to his brother, who might have shared it with the militant groups.
The brothers, both of whom carried tourist visas, are being deported to the US as "undesirable aliens," the Philippine immigration commissioner, Andrea Domingo, said on Tuesday.
It was not immediately clear when the men would be returned to the US, and whether they would face arrest in this country. The State Department referred questions about the details of the deportation to Philippine authorities, but the Philippine Embassy in Washington said it had no information about their return.
Susan Houghton, a spokesman for the Livermore lab, said that Michael Ray Stubbs' security clearance there had been terminated as a routine matter in July 2000, four months after he left his job on a medical leave.
"We are aware of what the Philippines officials did," Houghton said. "We have been working closely with the FBI on this issue since he was arrested in the Philippines a few weeks ago."
The Philippine immigration bureau has described the Stubbs brothers as "diehard Muslim extremists" who were "seen meeting with known leaders of various terrorist cells" with links to al-Qaeda. Philippine officials have described Mujahid as a man who left a job as a teacher in California to study Arabic in the Sudan.
The Philippine authorities said that the brothers, born in Missouri, had been under surveillance before their arrest. Domingo, the immigration commissioner, said there was no evidence linking the two men to any past or planned terrorist operations, but she said that in his statements to local authorities, Mujahid had called for the overthrow of the American government.
Domingo said the two men carried documents indicating that they were soliciting funds for the construction of Muslim schools and mosques.
Mujahid interrupted the news conference to denounce the accusations against him and his brother as "fabricated lies." Mujahid said he had a Filipino wife and was in the Philippines because she was pregnant.
Domingo was quoted as saying that the two men were "violating immigration laws and they're being charged and they are going through immigration proceedings."
The US Embassy in the Philippines has declined to comment on the allegations, except to say that the brothers had retained legal counsel to address the charges.
The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which was founded in 1952 to design nuclear weapons, is a federal facility administered by the Department of Energy and managed by the University of California. Its current responsibilities include research into other areas of science and engineering with national security applications.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese