FBI questions 'associate' of suspected dirty bomber

An alleged associate of the American citizen accused of plotting to detonate a radioactive "dirty" bomb in Washington is being questioned by the FBI in Pakistan. Agents are broadening their search for others involved in the plot.

A senior Pakistan intelligence official said the alleged associate, Benjamin Ahmed Mohammed, was in custody and had already been questioned by agents from the bureau. The man was possibly arrested at the beginning of May as he tried to board a flight to America with the alleged dirty bomb plotter, Abdullah al-Muhajir. A US official confirmed at least one associate of Mr Muhajir had been taken into custody overseas.

The developments were outlined as a lawyer for Mr Muhajir filed a court petition demanding his release, claiming he was being held illegally without charge. "My client is a citizen," said Donna Newman, after filing in a New York court on Tuesday. "Nothing has changed with respect to that. The last time I looked at the Constitution, he still had constitutional rights."

Mr Muhajir was arrested on 8 May after he arrived at O'Hare airport, Chicago. Authorities say he was on a reconnaissance mission and was hoping to obtain radioactive material from an unidentified university laboratory. He is being held without charge as an "enemy combatant".

As officials continue to search for other associates of Mr Muhajir, more details about the Brooklyn-born 31-year-old emerged yesterday.

There was a suggestion that Mr Muhajir – who was born Jose Padilla – might have converted from Catholicism to Islam after meeting an Egyptian woman in Florida. She has since become his second wife after he divorced a woman he married in 1996.

In documents placed before a court when they divorced last year, his first wife, Cherie Stultz, listed Mr Muhajir's last known address as Mustafa Basha Street, a five-street block in a middle-class area in the Egyptian capital, Cairo.

Yesterday, a note taped to the front door of Mr Muhajir's former wife's house read: "All I can say at this point is all my desires, all my strength, are in God's hands." The note concluded with the message: "Thank you and have a blessed day – may God be with you all."

Mr Muhajir is known to have attended several mosques and Islamic schools in Florida. "I knew this person only as Ibrahim," Shafayat Mohamed, leader of the Daral Uloom Institute in Pembroke Pines, told reporters. "He used to wear this Arab shawl around his head, like Yasser Arafat. It is very unique. It is one in a million who would do that."

* German authorities said yesterday they had received intelligence of a possible al-Qa'ida threat to shoot down civilian airliners, possibly using heat-seeking ground-to-air missiles or an unmanned drone aircraft carrying explosives.