Indonesian couple arrested at U.S. military base

Indonesian couple arrested at U.S. military base

Reuters, Washington

An Indonesian married couple and a Senegalese man who worked as foreign language instructors for elite U.S. special operations troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been arrested for immigration violations, authorities said on Wednesday.

Army officials said the three, all provided by the same private contractor, taught Middle Eastern languages at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg.

Sgt. Joseph Healy, a spokesman for Army Special Operations Command, said the three instructors had a purely academic role and "were not exposed to any Army special operations tactics techniques or procedures."

Frank Whitney, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, said there were no suspicions of espionage involving Indonesians Nurkis Qadariah, 34, and Sayf Rimal, 37, and Senegalese Ousmane Moreau, 38.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said the arrests were part of an effort to remove illegal immigrants working at sensitive sites and critical infrastructure locations such as airports, seaports, nuclear plants, chemical plants and military bases.

ICE agents arrested Qadariah and her husband Rimal on Tuesday and charged them with possessing and using false immigration documents and making false statements, officials said.

They were contractors working for BIB Consultants Inc., a Florida-based company that provides language instructors to U.S. Special Forces and other military personnel at Fort Bragg. Criminal complaints filed against them said they used counterfeit Resident Alien cards and falsely claimed to be lawful U.S. permanent residents to get work with BIB.

Authorities said there were pending deportation proceedings against Qadariah and Rimal in New York.

ICE agents arrested Moreau as part of the same investigation and charged him with being in the United States illegally, which will lead to proceedings to remove him from the country, the agency said.

"Unauthorized workers who use fraudulent documents to gain work at sensitive U.S. military installations pose a serious homeland security threat," Jeff Jordan, the agency's assistant special agent-in-charge in Charlotte, North Carolina, said in a statement.

"Not only are their identities in question, but they are also vulnerable to potential exploitation by terrorists and other criminals given their illegal status in this country," Jordan said. "Furthermore, these individuals have access to some of the most sensitive work sites in the nation."

Daniel Guillan, director of government contracting for BIB Consultants, said the company complied with all federal and contractual provisions by verifying employment eligibility for work in the United States and that a background check on the three "came back clear."