Bin Laden's right-hand man visits N.Z. twice

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Sunday, March 21, 2004

Bin Laden's right-hand man visits N.Z. twice

Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, has claimed he visited New Zealand twice between 1992 and 1996, investigating the country as a possible safe haven.

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Al Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, has claimed he visited New Zealand twice between 1992 and 1996, investigating the country as a possible safe haven.

The Osama Bin Laden's right-hand man posed as a businessman selling leather goods during visits to New Zealand to raise support for a global terror network.

These were revealed by bin Laden's biographer Hamid Mir in interviews with New Zealand's Sunday Star-Times and Australia's ABC television, which were published here Sunday. But New Zealand police and intelligence authorities said they had no record the terrorist leader had visited.

"He came to New Zealand not once, but twice . . . he was looking at hiding there because New Zealand is a safe place," Mir told the paper.

He said Zawahri had been on a mission across the globe to organize his network, recruit militants and collect funds.

Zawahri, a 52-year-old Egyptian, is the operational commander of al Qaeda and was a key planner of the September 11 terror attacks in the US. He is second on the FBI's most-wanted list, behind bin Laden, with a 25-million-US- dollars bounty on his head.

Mir said Zawahri told him about the New Zealand visits during an interview in Afghanistan in 2001, saying he had traveled here on false passports, using non-Arabic names.

He posed as a businessman wanting to export leather and claimedto have set up "offices" in Auckland, Oslo, Moscow and Geneva.

Mir did not know if any supporters had been recruited in New Zealand. "He told me that in the early '90s he had traveled to NewZealand; he was there to meet some of his people, and he came to Australia and then from Australia he went to Indonesia," Mir told the ABC.

Mir's interview with the ABC will screen in Australia Monday with the bin Laden biography due out in several weeks.

However, Mir's claims could not be confirmed by New Zealand authorities.

New Zealand police assistant commissioner for counter terrorism,Jon White, mirrored the Australian federal government's comments Saturday that it had no record the terrorist leader had visited. None of Zawahri's known aliases had shown up on records.

But White said police would investigate and read Mir's book when it was released to try to discover any other fake passport names.

White did not believe any terrorist cells operated here, but there were sympathisers who were potential supporters. "We are notcomplacent about this. We are actively engaged in inquiry work."

Source: Xinhua

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