Mohammed has admitted to investigators that he helped smuggle people from Iraq into Europe, but has denied being a member of Ansar or knowing that any of the illegal immigrants were part of the group, his lawyer said.
"From the first moment on, he said he was not a member of Ansar al-Islam and that there was no political background to his actions," the lawyer, Nicole Hinz, said in an interview in Munich. "He was smuggling these people for money. There was never any doubt about that." His purpose was to reunite people with friends and relatives in Europe, Hinz said.
This TV image shows victims of Feb. 1, 2004, suicide bombings in Irbil that killed at least 100. Sweden arrested four men in connection with the attack.
(Kurdsat Via AP Television)
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Before his arrest, German police wiretapped Mohammed's phone and listened to dozens of conversations in an attempt to learn more about the Ansar network in Europe. Records show that at least one of the conversations steered the investigation north again, this time to Sweden.
Unseen Danger
On Nov. 22, 2003, in a tapped phone conversation, Mohammed was asked by a boyhood friend to help smuggle 12 people into Iraq, ostensibly for the purpose of joining Ansar forces there, according to court records. Mohammed didn't have time to act on the request; he was arrested two weeks later.
The friend, Shahab Shahab, had grown up with him in the Kurdish town of Chamchamal. The two left Iraq together for Europe; Shahab went to Sweden.
The conversation led Swedish security police to open an investigation into Shahab. In April 2004, he and three other men were arrested in Stockholm and the southern Swedish city of Malmo on suspicion of engaging in terrorism.
Swedish authorities have accused the four men -- three of whom are Iraqi nationals -- of having "strong ties" to Ansar and of planning crimes that were "directed at the state of Iraq and were aimed at striking grave terror into a population," according to arrest warrants filed in Stockholm.
Swedish media have reported that the men are suspected of helping plan the bombings in Irbil last February.
After the arrests, the chief of Sweden's security police, Klas Bergenstrand, called the risk of terrorism in Sweden "relatively small," but acknowledged the presence of Ansar operatives in the country.
"There is a high risk that there are people in Sweden who work to prepare terrorist attacks in other countries," he told Swedish radio.
The arrests were "the first serious sign that we do have these problems," said Magnus Norell, an analyst for the Swedish Defense Research Council who studies terrorist groups. "Most of what is going on, you don't see. And that's the danger. This is a very good part of Europe to operate in. As long as you play it safe and play it cool, you're home free."
Shahab was released from jail last month after an appellate judge ruled that prosecutors did not have enough evidence to hold him while they pursued the investigation. Swedish authorities said they wanted to deport him, but were prohibited by law from sending him back to Iraq because he could face the death penalty or political persecution there.
His attorney, Bengt Soederstroem, said Shahab denied "very strongly" belonging to Ansar or playing any role in the Irbil bombings. Two of the other suspects in the case remain in jail. A third suspect, a Swedish citizen originally from Lebanon, was released in September but also remains under investigation.
Special correspondent Shannon Smiley in Berlin contributed to this report.
