Oussama Kassir nära att döda James Ujaama

Seattle Times gör ett porträtt på kronvittnet James Ujaama och förmedlar därmed en fin anekdot om svensken Oussama Kassir, som ju står åtalad.

Ten years ago, on a dusty ranch in southern Oregon, one-time Seattle hustler and Muslim convert James Ujaama came close to having his head cut off by a Swede named Oussama Kassir.

Kassir, according to court documents, had come to Bly, Ore., on the orders of Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Islamic preacher and purported al-Qaida recruiter in London, to help Ujaama set up a Jihad training camp on U.S. soil.

Ujaama had promised Abu Hamza guns, recruits and terrain remarkably similar to Afghanistan. Kassir, a hardened Jihad fighter who claims he's killed dozens in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, was purportedly dispatched from London with another man and $12,000 in startup money.

What Kassir and his comrade found after their 7,000-mile trip were a couple of dilapidated trailers, a motley group of followers — including women and children — and a lot of big talk from Ujaama.

So Kassir, according to documents and eyewitness accounts, decided that he would kill Ujaama and bury him in Bly. Ujaama managed to keep his head.

But Kassir, a Lebanese-born Swedish citizen and engineer who once bragged that he was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, may wish he'd carried out the threat: This week, the 43-year-old Ujaama — now a federal felon — is expected to be the star witness against Kassir in a terrorism-related trial in U.S. District Court in New York.