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Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Trials
Posted on Mon May 30, 2005 at 08:00:58 PM EST
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Update: New details are available from the 18- page Complaint. And the New York Times adds some context.

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original post:

A 50 year old physician from Palm Beach Boca Raton has been arrested at his home on a federal charge that he provided material support to terrorists. The AP reports the charges are out of the Southern District of New York and that the doctor is believed to have treated terrorists in Saudi Arabia. A second defendant, Tarik Shah, a New York martial arts expert, is alleged to have trained terrorists. Both are American citizens.

Prosecutors said Sabir agreed to treat jihadists, or holy warriors, in Saudi Arabia. Shah agreed to train them in hand-to-hand combat. The one-count complaint details a sting operation from 2003 to 2005 in which the two men took an oath pledging their allegiance to al-Qaida.

From the Sun Sentinel article:

Dr. Rafiq Abdus Sabir was charged with conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. He was being held in the Palm Beach County Jail waiting to appear in U.S. District Court.

One of Dr. Sabir's associates has nothing but praise for him:

Dr. Daniel McBride, spokesman for the Islamic Center of Boca Raton and a friend of Sabir, said Sabir works in the emergency rooms of two hospitals in Palm Beach County.

"That's absurd," McBride said of the charge against Sabir. "He is a quality guy and a quality physician. He's all about helping others. That's why he became a doctor. "It would shock me beyond belief if [the allegation] was true."

As for his background,

Sabir graduated from City College of New York with a bachelor's degree in biology and in 1981 graduated from Columbia University's medical school with a specialty in emergency medicine, according to Florida state records and Columbia's alumni Web site. He practiced in the New York City area in the 1980s and '90s before moving to Florida. Sabir received his Florida driver's license in 2002 and his medical license in 2003, according to state records.

He has no medical disciplinary actions against him in Florida, according to state records. He had none against him in New York, according to New York state records that date back to 1990.

More details of the sting here.

[Title edited to correct residence of doctor- it's in Boca Raton, not Palm Beach.]

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    Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge | 27 comments (27 topical)
    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#1)
    by DawesFred60 on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:27 PM EST
    Well, that is what happens when a non government for many years has told people that you can do anything against this so called nation, after all we have let into the so called country 40 million people in the last 20 years and most came here for one reason to make money and do business and attack the system that has handed out billions to just about any foreign person without anything back but treachery\treason\disloyalty, but i am talking about bush.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#2)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:27 PM EST
    Fred, sometimes you almost make sense.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#6)
    by DawesFred60 on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:28 PM EST
    To, wg under that law, sec 201, we could send bush to prison, he was and is working under cover or above cover, for mexico and its political system, once more his name is traitors/treachery/disloyalty/treason and in one guy and in one family going back to 1650. bush is benedict arnold, and god help us all for what he will do to millions of us in the end. but in this so called terrorists arrest can we wait until the case comes to court before we all yell for a town square hanging, who knows who this guy was really working for.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#8)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    wg - Problem is these two aren't from Sweden and they, per the post, "took an oath pledging their allegiance to al-Qaida." Looks pretty straight forward, eh?

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Gee Jim... it's certainly worth ruining the lives of a few socially concerned doctors to make sure that a couple of guys set up in a sting operation and accused of "intending" to do bad things get advertised as booty in the war on terror. Television commercials are so much more costly. Betcha 10 bucks to TL that the charges will get thrown out. Glad to see you're at least loyal. Can't wait to watch you go down on the fetid, rotting ship of fools BushCo has set you adrift in.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Maybe the charges will be dismissed. I can't imagine the well informed social conscience that would view treating bombers as a net positive, glowing background notwithstanding. If he did it, life would be too good. maybe the defendants could mouth some anti-Bush rhetoric and become heroes of the left.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#11)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Don't doctors take an oath to help any person in need of medical assistance?

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#18)
    by Richard Aubrey on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:29 PM EST
    Is it possible for someone who tries to damage the US to be considered a bad guy by the left? The last one I can think of was Hitler, and that was only after he'd attacked Russia. Prior to that, it wasn't our business. Suddenly, the 1941 left in the US and the UK and elsewhere did a neck-snapping one-eighty. Good ol' Operation Barbarossa separated the enthusiasts who had a shred of conscience from the real left. The former finally figured it out and decamped. Who would the terrorists have to attack to get the left to consider them bad guys? Cuba? Stalin figured he and Hitler were buds. He let the forbidden Luftwaffe train in Ukraine, sold Hitler raw materials at bargain-basement prices, cleared Hitler's eastern front with the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, split Poland with Hitler. Theoretically, he had no reason to think Hitler would attack. Militarily, it was a lousy idea, but that's not the point. The point is that the gratitude of really bad guys is limited. The left is making Stalin's mistake in buddying up with the terrorists. And their only excuse is that it hurts Bush, so it's okay.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#12)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    kdog...yes that is how it used to be. But as we have been told by Dick Cheney and others...everything changed after 9/11. We are now supposed to kill all enemy wounded rather than treat them. Even if they have a paper cut.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    yes, volunteering to treat mad bombers as the purest expression of the Hippocratic Oath. [This commenter is limited to four comments a day. He's a chatterer, see our comment policy.]

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#14)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    I don't know about you Ed...but if I take an oath I keep it. And if I see someone bleeding to death I'm gonna try and help, I'm not gonna ask them to recite the pledge of allegiance or pray to Jesus. I guess in your world oaths have loopholes.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:30 PM EST
    mfox.... Betcha 10 bucks to TL that the charges will get thrown out.... Didn't they already say they are pledged to Osama? If so, that is pretty much an admition of guilt isn't it? Ernesto.... But as we have been told by Dick Cheney and others...everything changed after 9/11. Most of us (with any brains) didn't have to be told that. We already knew it. However, some people just will never get it.... even after they HAVE to be told....aye Ernesto?

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#17)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:31 PM EST
    mfox - aw's comments are not true and are not related to this case. One of the individuals is a martial arts expert. The other is a doctor who agreed to treat "holy warriors." Both pledged loyalty to al-Qaida. All of the above is in the post, except for aw's work of fiction. You should try reading both. aw - See how your work of fiction confuses people? kdog - I don't think this Doctor wandered up on a car wreck of terrorists bleeding to death. Do you?

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#19)
    by roger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:32 PM EST
    RA, The left, and right (think grandpa Bush) turned against Hitler after Germany declared war on us the day after Pearl Harbor. The left, unfortunately, stood by Stalin, partly because the US gov't was allied with him. Without Russia, we might have actually lost that war. During WWII, the media did not cover the shortcomings of our allies, or our own shortcomings (think detention camps). The guys who were arrested took a loyalty oath to our enemies. Whether they are convicted, or not, they will not win any citizenship awards. They also may find it hard to find work in the US from now on.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#20)
    by Ernesto Del Mundo on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:32 PM EST
    ...Hitler, and that was only after he'd attacked Russia. Prior to that, it wasn't our business.
    In the words of PPJ...could you provide a link to this?
    Who would the terrorists have to attack to get the left to consider them bad guys? Cuba?
    Umm hello, but the U.S. has been using our tax bucks to have terrorists attack Cuba for the past 45 years.
    The left is making Stalin's mistake in buddying up with the terrorists.
    Wasn't it Ronald Reagan that called Osama a freedom fighter and gave him millions of dollars? Wasn't it Orrin Hatch that said supporting Osama "was worth it" as recently as 1998? (Why don't you ask Orrin Hatch if he still thinks it was worth it?) You don't have to do much searching to find a lot of people that share your political beliefs cozying up to terrorists (and Saddam) over the years under the guise of the Cold War or to make a quick buck.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#21)
    by kdog on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:32 PM EST
    I don't think he wandered up on a car wreck, but I don't see how a doctor treating a patient can be criminal. That would be a scary precedent. Providing money or guns to terrorists...criminal. Stitching a terrorist's wound...a doctor is bound by oath to do so, and should not be prosecuted for that alone. I think if the govt. really had something on the doctor they would use it, instead of this nonsense. Personally, I would like the govt. to focus on bigger fish than these two knuckleheads. Every man on this case is a man not working on catching Bin Ladin or other more dangerous threats.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#22)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Ernesto - "In the words of PPJ.." - This is a well known historical fact. Do some studying. In your haste to condemn, you ignore RA's previous sentence: "The point is that the gratitude of really bad guys is limited." kdog - I think the point is not the treatment of a wound that is just "presented" as needing treatment, but the treatment of wounds as part of a desire to aid and be of assistance. Big difference. And if one man can swim the ocean in 7 days, can 7 men swim it in one?

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#23)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Jim, Man, I just got done writing to you on the Memorial Day thread, and come here to find some bad joke about seven men and swimming the ocean. What the hell was that supposed to mean??? And how on earth do you treat a wound without giving aid or assistance? This is semantics as absurdism -- Ionesco would be proud. (Wow, now that's one obscure dramatic literature reference -- I really MUST be a liberal elitist bastard.)

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#24)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Fellas, don't you know better than to debate a conservative? They'll ignore facts that don't support their argument and repeat discredited fiction to bolster it... Figure out how to beat that, and maybe you can talk to them...until then, it's "Fozad..."

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#25)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Blagh, I agree in principle, but i HATE preaching to the converted. It's so BORING. For the purposes of political organization, it's invaluable, but on this blog I'd rather give the right at least a sample of liberalism that might cause them to question something, even if they don't admit it. Hell, you never know, they might do the same for me someday. Longshot, I realize, but if life should've taught us all by now that nothing is impossible. Peace, my friend.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#26)
    by Dadler on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    wow my syntax sucks when i write in a hurry.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#27)
    by ppjakajim on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    dadler - It aint no fun if you have to explain'em. The comment was a reply to Kdog who was claiming we didn't have enough people. My point was that sometimes adding people doesn't help getting something done. And you are too intelligent to not understand the difference between treating someone who just showed up, or you just ran into, and declaring support for terrorist and treating them. Blagh - Gee, I didn't recognize you as the source of all knowledge. Well, excuse me.... Tell us again about that neutral thing.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#28)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    PPJ- If it was "the Left" that wanted to keep the US out of WWII until after Dec. 7th., then how do you explain Lindberg's GOP candidacy on a isolationist platform, and numerous Right Wing biz. ties to the Reich (i.e. IBM, Henry Ford and Ford MC, and of course, Prescott Bush).

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#29)
    by Richard Aubrey on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Adept, that's a record for maximum nonsense in a single (run-on) sentence. Operation Barbarossa was prior to Pearl Harbor. Look it up. It was not Pearl Harbor that caused the left to switch, but Hitler's invasion of his goood buddy Stalin. The left didn't keep us out of the war, but they wanted to until the invasion of Russia. It was the general isolationist sentiment that did it, even after the invasion of Russia. Lindbergh was an isolationist. He also, repenting of his sins, worked with the air guys in the Pacific to extend the range and otherwise improve the performance of our aircraft, getting, it's said, at least one kill in the process. Prescott Bush--that's a lie. He was on the board of a bank which was owned by a bank which was owned by a German bank owned by a couple of guys named Thyssen who were so grossed out by Hitler that they left. Thin gruel, Adept. Now, scroll up to see what other nonsense he had in there....dum de dum. Biz ties. Okay. Thin, but not beyond the idea of doing business with vile regimes. Like France and China screwing around in the UN to avoid inconveniencing the Sudanese govt because of the oil concessions. The only one who may have favored Hitler was Ford, and that's only a maybe. I just don't know. Last I heard, it was only that Ford knew Chamberlain (Houston Stewart) and that's enough for some to blame the Holocaust on Henry. Link to the neck-snap. Nope. It's a book. "The New Meaning of Treason" by Rebecca West. Read it if you're planning on being a writer and you won't bother wasting another sheet of paper. You'd see you are outclassed. She covers traitors from Lord Haw-Haw to Profumo, including Fuchs and the Rosenbergs. She does their bios, social observations, and speculations as to their motivations. She also talks about the ol' switcheroo. It might also be useful to read the prefix and suffix to her "Black Lamb and Gray Falcon", written under the shadow of the Blitz. You can do the other fourteen hundred pages some rainy weekend. At about that time, it transpired that the left didn't want cheap bomb shelters built in the working neighborhoods of London. So when the unsheltered proles started getting killed by the Blitz, the left blamed the government for favoring the rich and leaving the poor to die. Neat trick. I presume that's in your manual. Anyway, if the terrorists attacked Cuba, would you consider that made them bad guys? They probably won't. Fidel, el Patron de todos los hombres, has half a bill squirreled away overseas and may be using a dollar or two for fun money to the terrorists. It seems that George Galloway is quite explicit in saying that "progressive" forces and the Islamists ought to ally themselves, as they have the same enemies. You agree, I suppose? Your actions would make denying kind of silly, but have at it.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#30)
    by Richard Aubrey on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    Oops. Forgot the first neck-snap. Must be that hitting sixty slowed me down. At first, the left hated Hitler with vim, vigor and virility. Once the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact made things copacetic with Hitler, the left loved him. First neck-snap. You'd think that would have weakened some necks--probably did--so that they came completely unglued when the word came down to do another one-eighty, simultaneously, as before, pretending there had never been a change in the first place. You folks are, I'm certain, made of sterner stuff and could keep up with any number of one-eighties. Makes me proud to know you. BTW. Does anybody live near Paul in LA? Do you think you could, you know, have a word with him? Get him to see somebody? It's what a friend would do.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#31)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:33 PM EST
    I love how Richard and the Right want it both ways... The Left was solely responsible for keeping us out of WWII Compared with that loveley conservative chestnut FDR and the Left manipulated us into war.. I also recommend IBM and the Holocaust, for those interested in US biz. ties to the third reich. West does make a number of Valid points about the British Left of that era. Anyone who's honest would admit that both Left and Right were at fault there (as well as in the US's late entry into WWII). Lindberg did apologize (he had to clear up his name for his GOP candidacy in 44' and 48'..that era's GOP was too intelligent to grant him the nomination, though 44 was close.), but I'll apply the Right's Clintonian standard...too little, too late. Therein lies the biggest difference between you and me. I have no difficulty admitting culpability on the part of the left or the right. You, as evidenced by your posts at least, seem to have an inability too see or admit to any faults the Right commits. You, unlike me, are a rigid ideologue, and it blinds you to half the faults in the society. And that is the fatal neck-snap.

    Re: Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge (none / 0) (#32)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:59:34 PM EST
    Actually it was repubs who constantly tried to defeat FDR's lend/lease and other programs before Pearl Harbor. The PatAct does have provisions for not charging doctors for medical assistance, but just today rumsfeld threatened Syria and Iran if anybody there gave medical care to Zarqawi. And the doctor charged in this case was going to Saudi Arabia to treat wounded, you remember, our great ally, the country where the 9/11 hijackers and OBL are from.

    Boca Raton Doctor Arrested on Terrorism Charge | 27 comments (27 topical)