Mohammad Rauf;[1] born June 4, 1969) is a Pakistani (formerly American) citizen[2][3] who served for months as a double agent for the FBI before pleading guilty in May 2003 of providing material support to Al Qaeda.
While installed as a double agent for the U.S. government, Faris sent messages to his terrorist commanders by mobile phone and email from an FBI safe house in Virginia.
In late 2001, while in Pakistan, Faris went to a travel agency to have some expired airline tickets to Yemen re-issued for several unknown colleagues.
He learned of a plot allegedly involving the simultaneous destruction of the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting through cables with blowtorches, and a second group that would derail a train in Washington D.C. Faris' investigations into obtaining the necessary tools for the dual-operation involved asking a friend where he might purchase welding equipment, and researching the structure of the bridge on the internet.
[4] On March 19, 2003, Faris was visited by two FBI agents and an anti-terror officer, who confronted him with testimony from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed about his contacts with al-Qaeda, and the results of an intercepted telephone call.
He was ordered to leave his home in Columbus and was assigned to a safe house in Virginia, from which he would appear to continue discussions with his contacts, reporting the information back to the FBI.
During this period, Faris told the agents that Majid Khan, a Baltimore youth who worked at his father's gas station, had referred to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as an "uncle" and spoken of a desire to kill Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf.
He later totally recanted this in a written statement provided in 2007 to Khan's Combatant Status Review Tribunal, saying his accusation was "an absolute lie," and he had been coerced into making the claims.
[15] The United States took Khan into custody in Pakistan and sent him to a CIA black site in Afghanistan, where he was interrogated, allegedly tortured and held for several years.
"[4] On September 25, 2003, Faris sought to withdraw his guilty plea, claiming that while he admitted to meeting with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, he had been seeking information about al-Qaeda for a book he wanted to write.
[19] The story was one of several that appeared in December 2005 by Eric Lichtblau and James Risen that won the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting awarded by Columbia University.