KSLA News 12 Shreveport, Louisiana |FBI Captures Espionage Suspect

FBI Captures Espionage Suspect

REPORTER:  Jeff Ferrell
     America's fight in the war on terrorism has shown up here in the Ark-La-Tex with the arrest in Bossier City of a Halliburton engineer.
     Federal Magistrate Mark Hornsby read the charges against 40-year old Ibrahim Omer, early Friday afternoon.  Prosecutors accuse Omer of trying to obtain and sell military information and equipment to people inside his home country of Yemen.
     Omer lives in Fort Worth, Texas.  He travelled to Bossier City for engineering training at the Halliburton office on Industrial Drive Extension in Bossier City.  On Thursday afternoon, FBI agents arrested him after getting a phone call from the U.S. Attorney's office in Fresno, California.
     The U.S. Attorney in Fresno named Omer as one of three men under indictment.  Authorities in Bakersfield, California had already arrested the other two alleged accomplices.
     The FBI's Senior Resident Agent in Shreveport, Mike Kinder, told us his agents had Omer in custody within 15-minutes, something unlikely before all the changes prompted by 9/11.  "May not, may not have had the coordination, that we had because this was a joint terrorism task force that was local, state."
     The probe against Omer began two years ago, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials tipped-off the FBI about a shipment of chemical suits and body armor from Long Beach to Yemen.  Investigators say they traced that shipment back to Omer, in Fort Worth.
     First Assistant U.S. Attorney William Flanagan told us outside the Shreveport Federal Court House, "he's (Omer) charged with two counts in a four count indictment and the charges against him involve a conspiracy to export defense articles and attempted exportation of those same defense articles."
     Omer and his alleged accomplices are all Yemini natives with U.S. citizenship.  They could face up to 10 years in prison for each count and up to one million dollar fines.  Magistrate Hornsby gave Omer the option of having his detention hearing in Shreveport or have it once he's returned to face prosecution in Fresno, california.  Omer chose Fresno and that's where U.S. Marshals will take him.
     In the meantime, Omer is locked up in maximum security in the Bossier Jail in Plain Dealing.