The testimonies filed by the lawyers of Arian Taherzadeh, 40, and Haider Ali, 35, came as the men were to appear in court. Monday afternoon for a detention hearing on the charge of impersonating federal law enforcement. Prosecutors, who said they could add a charge of conspiracy, said the couple posed a “potential threat to national security” and should be jailed pending trial. Arguments by Taherzadeh and Ali shed new light on a bizarre case that arose on Wednesday when The FBI investigated a luxury apartment building in the Navy Yard area and found a stockpile of police weapons, federal agent house passwords and equipment for creating ID cards that, if properly programmed, could be used to access sensitive computers. Prosecutors allege that the men consulted with Secret Service agents, including one assigned to the security services of First Lady Jill Biden. Men posing as DHS employees pose potential threat to national security, prosecutors say The manhunt began on March 14 when a U.S. Post inspector went to the building where Taherzadeh and Ali were staying in response to an irrelevant allegation of assault, according to court documents. While in the building – known to house many people working for the FBI, the Secret Service, the Department of Defense and the Navy – residents told the inspector that Ali and Taherzadeh had identified themselves as Interior Ministry investigators and could to have witnessed the attack, according to allegations made by investigators in court documents. Since then, federal authorities have accused Taherzadeh and Ali of obtaining materials such as police weapons and surveillance equipment to pose as Homeland Security officials, and then giving Secret Service members free rental apartments, iPhones, a drone and more. The FBI arrested the couple last Wednesday and released four members of the US Secret Service, including an agent who had been assigned the details of the first lady. Authorities have not found any motive or what the men wanted in return for the favors. “This investigation has been going on for less than two weeks and the situation is getting worse every day,” Assistant Attorney General Joshua S. Rothstein told the court on Friday. Taherzadeh’s defense attorney argued that he was motivated by a desire for friendship and that he only gave gifts to agents “with whom he had a genuine friendship” and never asked for anything in return. Taherzadeh was previously licensed in DC as a private detective and special police officer in charge of protecting the property of an individual or a company, according to DC police. He admitted to law enforcement authorities, his lawyer said in court documents, that he had committed “a shameful falsification that got out of control”. Ali’s defense, on the other hand, shifted the blame to Taherzadeh, arguing in court documents that Ali “may have believed naively but honestly” that Taherzadeh was a Homeland Security investigator. The defense explained Ali’s alleged mistake by pointing to the government’s own allegations that four US intelligence agents had made similar miscalculations by believing the other defendant. “If all these experienced federal agents, with their years or even decades of experience, did not understand Taherzadegh’s claims, why is it fair to expect more from Mr. Ali, a high school graduate without a college degree and none of their official education? “wrote lawyer Gregory Smith in court documents. Many members of the family wrote letters on behalf of Ali, describing him as a hard-working man devoted to his family. Prosecutors also said Ali was in danger of flying, citing his previous trip and an unfounded allegation to a witness that he had links to the Pakistani intelligence service. In a statement Friday, Pakistani embassy spokeswoman Maliha Sahid denied Ali’s allegations of links to the country’s Inter-Intelligence Service. “Mr. Haider Ali’s claim is completely wrong,” he said. “The Embassy categorically rejects this false allegation.” Ali, a naturalized US citizen, apparently obtained a Pakistani identity card in 2019, available to his citizens living abroad, Rothstein said. He has traveled at least twice to his homeland Pakistan, once to Egypt and once to Iraq, and traveled to Iran sometime between July 2019 and January 2020. “We have not even credited his statement [of ties to ISI]”Rothstein said on Friday. “But we have to take his statement seriously if he claimed to be from a foreign intelligence service.” Smith argued in court documents that Ali’s travels to Iran and Iraq were “not particularly noteworthy, as Mr Ali’s main religious shrines are located there, and these visits also took place more than two years ago, with no visits or contacts From. “ Ali’s defense denied the risk of fleeing, saying he had lived in the US for more than 20 years and that his family now lived in the area. Peter Hermann contributed to this report.
