An American Muslim Faces the Heat

By Terry McCarthy/Portland

After former president George Bush delivered a speech in China in 1998, a bright young American student stood up to ask a question. Why, Patrice Lumumba Ford wanted to know, had charges against Oliver North concerning the Iran-contra scandal been dropped during Bush's term in office nearly a decade earlier? Bush was taken aback by the directness of the question, according to several people present at the Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center.

Four years later, Ford, now 31, is entangled with another Bush. This time it's George W., whose Administration arrested Ford on Oct. 4, claiming that he was part of a terrorist cell in Portland, Ore. Ford and several others were charged with conspiring to levy war against the U.S., contributing services to al-Qaeda and the Taliban and possessing firearms in furtherance of crimes of violence. Ford has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

The allegations have left some skeptical; there is no evidence, at least not yet, of a terrorist plot. And Ford, in particular, doesn't fit the profile of a terrorist. A Muslim convert and son of a Black Panther leader, he has long held strident political views. But he is also something of a model citizen. As a student, he once penned a note thanking a professor for a well-taught course. As an adult, he volunteered to teach arts and crafts to children in a Muslim community center in Portland. Tall and athletic, Ford is consistently described as calm and gentle and is admired for his linguistic abilities. Is this a man who would turn to violence against his country?

Ford grew up in a disciplined household, with a set time for homework and an early bedtime. The civil-rights views of his father Kent greatly influenced him. Ford is proud of being named after Patrice Lumumba, the Congolese independence hero, though he eventually chose to be known as just Lumumba--because, says his half-sister Cindy Fontenot, "Patrice sounded girlish to him." Says Fontenot, 34, a human-resources professional: "He was always very mature, someone to lean on because he was so strong but very sensitive."

The American public knows him instead as a suspected terrorist. The U.S. government claims Ford flew to Hong Kong last October with four others intending to enter Afghanistan to fight against American forces. None of the five actually made it to Afghanistan. Ford returned to Portland in November, according to the indictment.

Though the evidence against Ford seems murky (he is due to appear in court for a bail hearing this week), he may have been caught up in a possibly half-baked plot to get involved in the Afghan conflict. One of his alleged co-conspirators, Ahmed Ibrahim Bilal, gave himself up Oct. 6 in Malaysia, where he was studying at the International Islamic University in Kuala Lumpur. According to a Jordanian student at the university who asks to be identified only as "Abdullah," Bilal told him he had tried to enter Afghanistan but couldn't succeed once the U.S. bombing had begun.

Ford's passion, however, was not Central Asia but China. His interest was sparked by an uncle, Leonard Trigg, a kung fu expert who often traveled to Asia. Ford learned martial arts from Trigg and chose his high school--Lincoln--because it taught Chinese. Ford continued to study the language at Portland State University, where teachers regarded him as an ideal student. "We expected him to have a career in international relations," says Linda Walton, a professor of Chinese.

During his college years, Ford converted to Islam. He was initially discreet about his newfound faith, though it gradually began to take over his life. In 1998 he returned to China for more studies, enrolling at the prestigious Hopkins center in Nanjing. There he met local journalist Xie Chunlin, whom he brought back to the U.S. and married in 2000. Ford briefly interned in the office of Portland Mayor Vera Katz but otherwise supported his family by selling cell phones. He became more serious about his faith, letting his beard grow, wearing a Muslim cap and studying Arabic. Friends say the man they knew as a gentle giant began distancing himself from the African-American Muslim community, choosing instead to pray at the Islamic Center of Portland, whose members are mostly Arab and North African immigrants.

"My three brothers had a dream," says Fontenot, "to become professionals, buy a building and practice there together." Ford's elder brother James Britt is an attorney, and his younger brother Sekou is a doctor, but, says Fontenot, "Lumumba's ideas about who he wanted to be when he grew up changed. His goals were more related to his heart." His family expected that his future would involve aiding Muslim charities and studying the Koran. The U.S. saw his future in terrorism. Now it's with the courts. --With reporting by Hannah Beech/Shanghai, Simon Elegant/Kuala Lumpur and Polly Forster and Nathan Thornburgh/Portland

With reporting by Hannah Beech/Shanghai, Simon Elegant/Kuala Lumpur and Polly Forster and Nathan Thornburgh/Portland