Sudanese man says his son wouldn't plot against U.S.

By Mohamed Osman ~ The Associated Press

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- The father of a Sudanese pilot-turned-cabbie being investigated in the United States for terrorist ties said his son would never have plotted against America, a Sudanese newspaper reported Monday.

Hamed Mekki Hamed told Al-Watan daily newspaper that Sudanese officials had visited to inform the family about his 30-year-old son, Mekki Hamed Mekki, who had trained as a pilot but was working in Greensboro, N.C., as a cab driver. The father said his wife fainted on hearing the news.

"This news was a shock to us in the family," he was quoted as saying. "My son Mekki, the son that I know very well, cannot strike at a bird -- he could not hit a bird. He is not the kind to throw a stone at a pigeon let alone a White -- or a black -- House."

The FBI arrested Hamed's son on Sept. 13 and accused him of making false statements while applying for a U.S. visa. He was being detained on immigration charges while investigators try to determine if he is an al-Qaida operative. Osama bin Laden was based in Sudan in the early 1990s, but was expelled in 1996 and moved to Afghanistan.

Adil Sidhamed Khalifa, editor in chief of Al-Watan, said he tracked down the family after 13 hours of driving around the outskirts of Khartoum, finding Hamed's home in a poor neighborhood of Jimaiab.

Hamed told Al-Watan he believed his son was arrested because he failed to specify in his visa application that he had worked as a pilot and had studied aviation in Peshawar, Pakistan.

Hamed said his son was a calm, smart child who excelled in secondary school. He said his son studied geology at the University of Khartoum, but had longed since childhood to become a pilot.

Mekki was among a group of students on government scholarships who traveled to Peshawar in 1993 and spent two years there, Hamed said. On returning, he took a job with a private aviation company that later was merged into the Sudanese armed forces.

A colleague of Mekki's in North Carolina, Jamal Omer, said that Mekki had been a co-pilot for the Sudanese air force, but gave up on his hopes of becoming a pilot in the United States after Sept. 11, 2001.