Earnest James Ujaama

Earnest James Ujaama (1966 -) is a Seattle, Washington community activist and indicted associate of al-Qaeda.

Born in Denver, Colorado as James Thompson, he moved with his family to Seattle at the age of 5. He converted to Islam in the post-civil rights era, when he changed his name to Ujaama. Ujaama's community work was so highly regarded that Seattle once gave him a key to the city and Washington state lawmakers declared June 10, 1994, James Ujaama Day.

While traveling in England in 1999, he is alleged to have met Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical Moslem cleric. Ujaama also traveled to Afghanistan in 1999 to study Sharia, according to family friends.

Ujaama was arrested in Denver on July 22, 2002 as a material witness. He was transferred to a prison in Virginia around July 29, and held there with restricted access to family or counsel until an indictment for providing material resources to al-Qaeda was returned against him in Seattle. These charges included attempting to create a camp for training terrorists near Bly, Oregon between October and December of 1999.

In April 2003, the government dropped those charges and filed a superseding complaint alleging that Ujaama brought money, computer equipment and a recruit to Taliban officials in Afghanistan. In February of the following year, Ujaama agreed to a plea bargain: in return for a two year sentence, he would provide information for ongoing terrorism investigations -- especially for what he knew about al-Masri, whose Web site Ujaama once ran.