Hassan Almrei - Life

Life

Although born in Syria, Almrei's family moved to Dammam, Saudi Arabia when he was 7 since his paternal uncle had been sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for his role in the Muslim Brotherhood - his father was sentenced to death in absentia in Syria, as he worked as a teacher in Saudi Arabia. He has eight siblings in Saudi Arabia, and one sister who moved to Lebanon with her husband. He memorised the Quran while he was young.

He claims to have been self-employed since February 1990 when he finished high school, though he later stated that he'd spent several months doing office work for the charitable Muslim African Agency following graduation.

He later explained that he had traveled towards Afghanistan, after using his father's contacts in the Muslim Brotherhood to purchase a forged Syrian passport, to attend a Jalalabad camp run by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a commander in the Northern Alliance. However, he contracted malaria and remained in a guest house called Bait al-Ansar in Peshawar for a year before attending Sayyaf's camp, where'd he trained on an AK-47 with a group named Ittihad-i-Islami. He made three subsequent trips into Afghanistan to stay at the camps under Sayyaf's leadership, using his savings to finance the third trip.

In 1994 left Sayyaf's company and traveled to Kunduz to follow Ibn al-Khattab instead, and met Nabil al-Marabh.

Almrei claims he traveled to Pakistan to investigate business possibilities selling honey and perfume. He was in Pakistan from November 1994 through March 1995, and went to Yemen in March 1995. He also claims to have traveled twice in Tajikistan during the year, where he scouted on Soviet positions for Ibn al-Khattab, and although he was willing to fight in combat, he claims he served chiefly as an Imam to the group and was never involved in any major combat, though he saw several skirmishes. When Khattab moved on to fight in the First Chechen War, he would still phone and fax Almrei with updates on the struggle.

He has stated that he closed his business from as early as 1996 to as late as January 1998, and was unemployed from thence on.

Although New York Times reporter Judith Miller claimed that he used his honey business to smuggle money for militants, analysts say there is no evidence to support that and Almrei has raised issue with Miller's history of controversy. After her story was published, he claimed that he sold chiefly perfume and oud, but later stated that he sold primarily honey, importing 500 kg from Pakistan.

He unsuccessfully tried to immigrate to Canada with his Syrian passport #3286630 on April 19, 1998, stating that he wished to visit Hisham Al Taha in Richmond, British Columbia. He later claimed to have never spoken to al Taha and that he'd just put down his name on the advice of a friend who told him it would improve his chances of being accepted for a visa.

He traveled to Thailand in August 1998, where he met a Palestinian people smuggler named Ghaled whom he befriended given his own reputation for acquiring false passports.