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Terrorist act? Mohammed caught buying up cell phones at Dollar Gen. Clarke County Commission-ers may not have been as far out in left field as countians thought when they voted to purchase terrorists insurance for the Clarke County Courthouse. Last week, a man who was known to have contact with a "subject" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, was stopped in the parking lot in front of the courthouse and held by deputies until the FBI could send an officer to question him. People known to engage in terrorist activity or to consort with those who do are considered subjects by the FBI. Mohammed Haif was spotted in Jackson purchasing all the track phones in the store from the Dollar General there. The cell phones can be used to pull signals off satellites and have been used to detonate bombs. A report was made to Clarke County 911 and dispatchers then contacted officers and gave them a description of the car, which was said to be headed to Grove Hill. As Deputy Ron Baggett drove to the four-way intersection at Court and Clark Streets in Grove Hill, he saw the vehicle and began to follow it. "It circled the courthouse but I finally got him stopped in front of Gene and Ellen's. The car was rented in Texas and when I got to the car he (Haif) was pointing at a navigational system in the car and telling me he was trying to get to Dollar General. I told him to hold on a minute, that I needed to talk to him. He gave me permission to search his vehicle and there must have been 400 track phones in there," Baggett said. At this point Deputy Steve Carlisle joined Baggett in the investigation. Baggett asked why he had the phones and Haif replied that he sold them to a man in California, Mohammed Farhat, for $3 over what each phone cost him. "This guy drove from Houston to here, which meant he paid rent on the car, bought the gas, has at least a $900 navigational system in the car and had bought all those phones. I knew something was wrong so I contacted the FBI," he said. The FBI's terrorist division sent officers to Grove Hill who interviewed Haif. He told them he did not know why Farhat wanted the phones, but that he was trying to make money.
The agents told Baggett Farhat had been under investigation for terrorist activity, but that Haif had done nothing illegal and they let him go. Baggett joked that it might have been a good idea to keep the terrorist insurance.
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