Family seeks to reconstruct man’s last days as U.S. probe continues
by Andrew Seymour
Ottawa Citizen [1]
OTTAWA — An Ottawa man found dead of cyanide poisoning in a Denver hotel room Monday had been in contact with a female relative in the Colorado city in the days before his death, according to the director of a U.S.-based Somali activist group who is now assisting the man’s family.
Omar Jamal, executive director of the Somali Justice Center in St. Paul, Minnesota, said Saleman Abdirahman Dirie, 29, had been speaking with the relative before travelling to the city about four or five days before his death.
Mr. Dirie was buried in a Denver cemetery Thursday amid a NBC news report that he committed suicide.
The report, citing unnamed federal officials, said it’s believed Mr. Dirie mixed sodium cyanide with water and drank it. According to the NBC news report, traces of cyanide were found in a glass next to the bed.
Spokespeople for the Denver police and FBI would not confirm the report Thursday, and Denver’s deputy chief coroner, Michelle Weiss-Samaras, was adamant that her office had not determined the manner of Mr. Dirie’s death. However, they could confirm he died of cyanide poisoning, she said.
Mr. Jamal, a prominent Somali activist who said he is acting as a spokesman for Mr. Dirie’s family, said they could not verify the suicide reports.
He added it was not yet clear whether Mr. Dirie — who suffered from schizophrenia — was travelling to Denver to meet the relative.
According to Mr. Jamal, Mr. Dirie left Ottawa on or about Aug. 7 by bus for Denver. That contradicted information provided by a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Thursday, whose records indicate Mr. Dirie entered the U.S. on Aug. 5 at a border crossing in Detroit.
Additional information, such as whether he was on a bus or travelling by car, was not available.
Mr. Jamal said he planned to talk with the woman Mr. Dirie spoke to about what she knows about his visit. According to Mr. Jamal, the relative’s phone number was one of the last numbers Mr. Dirie called from his cellphone in the days before his death.
Mr. Jamal said the Somali community has been dismayed following rampant speculation that Mr. Dirie may have been involved in a terrorist plot targeting the Democratic National Convention, which is to open in Denver on Aug. 25.
Denver police have since rejected any suggestions Mr. Dirie’s death is terrorism-related, calling it an “isolated incident.”
However, the FBI’s joint terrorism task force was involved in the investigation after Mr. Dirie’s body was found next to a jar of a powdery substance that was later identified as sodium cyanide, the crystal form of the chemical.
According to a report in the Rocky Mountain News, the FBI recovered a jar labelled hazardous, which contained about half a litre of white powder.
Denver police have said foul play is not suspected in Mr. Dirie’s death.
They were releasing no further information Thursday about why they think Mr. Dirie was in possession of the sodium cyanide.
Mr. Dirie’s sister told the Citizen Wednesday that her brother suffered from mental illness, and she angrily rejected any suggestion that he was tied to terrorism or had any intention of harming Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
She said her brother was on vacation when he died.
He was not suicidal, and had been taking his medication regularly since being diagnosed with schizophrenia about three years ago, she said.
He never got into trouble with the law, according to friends, family and police.
A Canadian citizen, Mr. Dirie had lived in Ottawa for 13 years. His family arrived as refugees from Somali when he was 17.
Mr. Jamal chastised both the FBI and the media for making a “rush to judgment” on the case by fuelling speculation Mr. Dirie was in possession of the cyanide for terrorist purposes.
“There are more questions than answers,” he said, adding Mr. Dirie’s family is “as confused as everyone else” about what has happened.