Chester man wants his name cleared in anthrax case

From the day in November 2001 when FBI agents looking for the anthrax killers battered in the door of his Chester house and held his wife at gunpoint, Asif Kazi has steadfastly maintained two things.

He is completely innocent, and he doesn't blame the U.S. government for what it was doing to him.

Kazi, 44, an American citizen born in Pakistan, was an assistant finance director for Chester when the raid took place.

Two of Kazi's childhood friends, Chester Health Commissioner Irshad Shaikh and Shaikh's brother, Masood, a Health Department employee, also were the subjects of a search of their homes and offices.

The three men were never charged with a crime, though they were questioned several times. Because the warrant outlining the reason for the search was sealed, no explanation has been given for why they were targeted.

Now the government has placed the sole blame on the anthrax mailings that killed five people and hospitalized many others on Army scientist Bruce Ivins, effectively exonerating all other suspects.

But Kazi wants more. He wants his name cleared so he can fully restore his reputation and get on with his life.

"As it stands, the investigation is still open," he said. "If I go and look for another job, they will check my record, and who knows what would happen?"

For almost seven years, even as he was routinely pulled out of line while boarding domestic flights and searched, had his luggage swabbed, and was questioned for hours whenever he left the United States and returned, Kazi refused to give in to bitterness.

"What happened to us, I cannot forget it," he said. "But at the same time, if I was working for the federal government, I would have done the same thing to save the country, with what was going on at the time."

State Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R., Delaware), the mayor of Chester at the time of the raid, supports Kazi's request.

"I think it would be appropriate to have some official statement that the case is closed and there is no wrongdoing found so there is some public closure to the case," he said.

Justice Department spokesman Dean Boyd said he was not aware of any plans to issue such a statement, but would "relate the request to people here."

"We're confident that Bruce Ivins was the only one involved in this attack," Boyd said.

After the 2001 raid, Pileggi and the Chester City Council stuck with Kazi and the Shaikh brothers, leaving them in their jobs and proclaiming their trust in them.

"They were not charged or arrested. What happened was a highly publicized search," Pileggi said. "Their integrity and service to the city had been exemplary."

Kazi remains in the same job. "God forbid if they would have kicked us out," he said. "Our careers were destroyed. Nobody would have employed us. They stood by us, from day one to today."

Irshad Shaikh, who also was born in Pakistan, now works for the World Health Organization in Cairo, Egypt, and has worked on public-health projects in Afghanistan and Iraq. He finally was granted citizenship in the spring, after his request for naturalization was delayed for years.

Masood Shaikh had to leave the country in 2006 when his work visa was not renewed. He now works with the United Nations in Kenya, Kazi said.

Kazi's wife, Palwasha, has worked since 2006 as a translator for the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, where she was born.

"She was working for the Army with a clearance and her husband was being interrogated," Kazi said. "I would tell her, 'Next time I travel, you have to go with us and show your badge.' "

Although he can joke about it now, Kazi still gets visibly upset as he recalls the indignities he and his wife suffered.

On one occasion, while returning with his wife from a visit to relatives in Canada, a scan of his passport triggered an alert. "Three agents came from here, three agents came from there, almost unbuckling their guns, literally - it was an

X Files

movie scene, a Hollywood movie scene." Kazi said.

"They pulled me out of the car, spread me on the boot [trunk] of the car, and said, 'Spread your legs. Do you have any weapons?' This was happening to me for the first time in my life. People were looking at me. It was a pretty embarrassing situation."

He and his wife were questioned and held for several hours before being released, he said.

They got through the ordeal, Kazi said, because "we were clear in our hearts. [We] let them do what they wanted to do. We knew we were innocent."

He added: "We were just waiting for the real guy to get caught. That was what we were hoping for. . . . Thank God, justice and the laws still prevail in this country."