Wife of man accused of terrorist plot: 'He is not an extremist'

On Friday, the wife of Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif, one of two men accused this week of plotting a terrorist assault on a Seattle military recruit processing station, sat outside a mosque in SeaTac, watching her 3-year-old son play.

She had come, she said, to ask for help for basic living expenses after her husband, Abdul-Latif, also known as Joseph Anthony Davis, 33, and the other man, Walli Mujahidh, also known as Frederick Domingue Jr., 32, were arrested this week.

"My husband worked to take care of me," Binta Moussa-Davis, 46, said outside the mosque where her husband attended Friday afternoon prayers in recent years. "I don't know how to pay. He's the one to pay for food and rent."

She described her husband as a devout Muslim who, since converting to Islam about 10 years ago, has only missed Friday afternoon prayers twice. He would pray five times a day no matter where he was, she said.

But they also loved America and had an American flag in their car. In their time together, she said, she never heard him say anything anti-American.

"That's why it's such a shock," she said. "He is not an extremist. He is not."

Moussa-Davis, who is originally from Niger, said she met Abdul-Latif about six years ago. She was then living in Columbus, Ohio, on a student visa. A longtime friend attended Idriss Mosque in Seattle's Northgate neighborhood, the same mosque where Abdul-Latif went to pray at the time.

The friend gave Abdul-Latif her phone number, they talked and exchanged online photos, he flew to Ohio to meet her and eventually they married.

She said she doesn't believe news accounts that have said her husband had searched for a second wife through an online dating site.

"He loves me," she said.

She believes the person who informed the FBI about the plot might have had some ulterior motives.

She said she didn't know how her husband met the informant, another Muslim. But she did say the informant once stayed at their home for two weeks after the man had divorced his wife and was on his way to Turkey to look for another wife.

Moussa-Davis also said the informant has felony convictions and had stolen thousands of dollars from her husband. That informant, she said, had also asked her to leave Abdul-Latif to marry him.

She said she also doesn't know how her husband met Mujahidh, who used to live in the area and would come to their house many times.

She broke down in tears several times while talking of her current situation.

"It's like my heart is going to stop," she said.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com