exclusive

A Malaysian company today denied having any links to a terrorist suspect said to be its employee when he was charged yesterday in a United States court for conspiring with the al Qaeda network in the Sept 11 attacks.

Infocus Tech (M) Sdn Bhd told malaysiakini it had no knowledge of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was alleged to have worked with the 19 suicide hijackers who commandeered four jetliners - two crashed into New York's World Trade Centre and one into Washington's Pentagon.

The fourth plane crashed in an open field in Pennsylvania.

Moussaoui, a French citizen of Moroccan origin, is believed to be the 20th hijacker who failed to get into the US in time to catch his plane.

"We do not have any representative in the United States or any other parts of the world," said company managing director Ahmad Zaki Embi when met at his office in Kuala Lumpur.

He stressed that his company, which distributes digital products, has eight full-time staff, and none of them are foreigners.

Appointed marketing consultant

Moussaoui was indicted in the federal court in Virginia state yesterday - the first indictment directly related to the Sept 11 terror attacks - on several charges which upon conviction will face the death sentence.

According to CNN.com, Moussaoui was arrested for an immigration violation in mid-August, after a Minnesota flight school allegedly told the FBI that Moussaoui wanted to fly a jumbo jet - when he could barely handle a private plane.

The US government believed that Moussaoui was trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, which was the base of the Sept 11 attacks' prime suspect, Osama bin Laden.

In the 30-page indictment, Moussaoui was said to have possessed documents showing that he was a representative of Infocus Tech.

"On or about Sept 29, 2000, Moussaoui contacted Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma using an email account he set up with an Internet service provider in Malaysia.

"In or about Oct 2000, Moussaoui received letters from Infocus Tech, a Malaysian company, stating that he was appointed Infocus Tech's marketing consultant in the US, the United Kingdom, and Europe, and that he would receive, among other things, an allowance of US$2,500 per month," read the indictment.

No transaction

However, Ahmad Zaki told malaysiakini that the only link between the company and the US is its American digital hardware and software supplier, IEX.com, over the past seven years.

"The news came as a shock to us this morning, someone could have used our company name or letterhead [for his own purpose]," he added.

He added that Infocus Tech has checked its accounts and verified with the Bank Negara in order to make sure that there was no overseas transaction made without their knowledge.

When asked, Ahmad Zaki said he had not received any calls from the local and US authorities requesting for information on Moussaoui.

"But I got phone calls from foreign media asking for information and I have told them the company has nothing to do with Moussaoui," he said.

To prevent the company from being further embroiled in the issue, he said Infocus Tech has decided that any clarification on the matter will be done by the company's lawyers.

Surveillance tape

Malaysia has taken a cautious stand on the issue of terrorism since the Sept 11 attacks. The government condemns the US' retaliatory actions on Afghanistan but had repeatedly stressed that it will not harbour any terrorists.

In early October, a Microsoft branch office in Nevada state reportedly received a mail re-routed from Malaysia which was later confirmed to have contained anthrax, sparking off a major panic in the Western states of the US.

Following that, the Malaysian government and police pledged full support to the US in assisting their investigations.

One of the suspected Sept 11 hijackers, Khalid Al-Midhar, was reported to have been seen on a surveillance tape meeting a man in Kuala Lumpur, who US officials suspect was involved in last year's attack on the USS Cole warship in Yemen.