Mohammad Safarpour, a 21-year-old Cheney resident and student at Spokane Falls Community College, says the U.S. Secret Service is accusing him of plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush. Safarpour said he denied those allegations and the idea seemed like a "joke" to him.
Secret Service Agent John Kirkwood said the agency could not comment on "ongoing investigations and cases of that nature."
Safarpour believes the accusations are an almost direct consequence of a discussion he participated in during fall quarter, organized by the SFCC Journalism Club. The topic was the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Safarpour, who moved to the U.S. from Iran with his family six years ago, was asked to join the discussion to provide the perspective of a Middle Eastern student. He said a crowd of about 300 students and community members received his comments with mixed reactions.
"I said that there's a reason some people in the Middle East are mad, and this war has to do a lot with oil," he said.
Safarpour, who describes himself as a leader, said he has been very outspoken and active about his opposition to war in Iraq. As an immigrant from the Middle East, he was asked to guest-speak in four or five classes and has attended several peace rallies.
About a month ago, he said, he was approached by a Secret Service agent while heading to his car. The agent told Safarpour he needed to follow him downtown. He agreed, and upon arrival at their building found himself talking to two agents, who pulled out a file several inches thick and told him they had received calls indicating that he was about to join a terrorist organization.
"He made it sound like there's a recruiting station downtown and I just went there and joined or something," Safarpour said.
He said they asked him if he had ever dreamed or hallucinated about President Bush, and if he wanted to kill him. They also asked whether he had a picture of Bush on his wall he throws darts at. Safarpour answered 'no' to all of these questions.
Safarpour said he consented to having his home, vehicle, and personal effects searched, including his computer and several essays he had written for English classes about the war. He also said he offered to take a polygraph to prove his innocence, and returned to do so several days later.
After the exam, Safarpour said he was told he had failed, though he was not allowed to see the results, since, the agents said, he would not be able to understand them. At that point, he said, the nature of the questioning changed completely. Safarpour described a harrowing, daylong interrogation session during which he was denied water and subjected to agents screaming and cursing at him and banging their fists against the walls.
Safarpour said the agents questioned him repeatedly about a .22 caliber firearm that he says he purchased legally last year, and about 18 ounces of saltpeter he purchased while attending Moses Lake High School. He said they also asked him multiple questions about his religion and his occasional attendance at a local mosque. He said he was scared and confused by the end of the day, and that he was going to tell them whatever was necessary to get out of that room. "You are willing to tell them anything they want to hear," he said. Safarpour said he felt tricked into signing a waiver precluding his right to have a lawyer present, as well as another statement he wrote describing every negative thing he had ever said, including in private conversations with friends, about President Bush.
Safarpour, who works at Burger King, moved to Moses Lake in 1997 when his father, who opposed the Iranian government, requested political assylum here. He served briefly in the U.S. Navy after high school. Khalil Islam, who works at Eastern both as the Director of the Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities and Advisor to the Muslim Student Association, said he is unaware of any similar incidents occurring on campus. He said students of Middle-Eastern descent here are taking extra precautions to distance themselves from anything that could be misconstrued as involvement with questionable organizations. "They understand they're under closer scrutiny," he said. "We're so accustomed to freedom of speech...and we're not used to those things being monitered."
Islam also said it is important at this point for community members to remain objective about the ordeal.
"Part of me wants to take everything he says as the honest truth," he said. "[But] if he's been drawn into this, there's gotta be a lot more to the story than we're getting...one of the things we can easily do is shoot ourselves in the foot by not having the proper information. What we need is the right action, at the right time, for the right reason."