U.S. officials said they believe that Sacramento State graduateand Al Qaeda suspect Yazid Sufaat may have played an important rolein the development of biological and chemical weapons, as reportedSunday in the Chicago Tribune.

Sufaat could have been eligible for release from prisonyesterday if charges for him had not been renewed. The State Hornetcould not verify his status before press time.

The 1987 alumnus with a degree in biological sciences, a formerMalaysian army captain and lieutenant of a militant Islamic clericin neighboring Indonesia, had been imprisoned since December 2001after trying to enter his country through the Thai border.

Sufaat was charged by U.S. officials in April 2002 with helpingsuspected Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged twentiethhijacker arrested a month before the attack, enter the UnitedStates.

Sufaat had also hosted two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, who wereon the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, at his condominium inKuala Lampur in January 2000.

He was also detained for ordering four tons of ammonium nitrate,a fertilizer that can be used as a bomb-making ingredient,according to Time Magazine in February 2002.

Malaysian authorities can imprison people deemed a potentialnational security threat without charges for up to two years.

CBS reported in October that Sufaat had allegedly been workingon an anthrax program in Afghanistan.

Sac State biological sciences professor Robert Metcalf, whoinstructed Sufaat in a food microbiology class in the spring of1986, said the first lesson in class was to teach students howGerman physician Robert Koch proved how anthrax was caused by aspecific bacterium.

“All of my students know how to isolate anthrax in soilsamples,” Metcalf said of the 38-year-old to the ChicagoTribune, whom he said was a quiet, normal student. “Anthraxwas the first organism we talked about.”

Sufaat had been allegedly cooperating with the leader of anAl-Qaeda- affiliated terrorist network, Riduan Isamuddin, alsoknown as “Hambali,” on an Al Qaeda anthrax program inKandahar. Hambali allegedly masterminded the bombing in Bali in2002 that killed more than 200 people.

Sufaat and Hambali fled Afghanistan in 2001 during the U.S.bombing campaign on Pakistan, where, according to the CBSinterrogation reports, the two men discussed “continuing theanthrax program in Indonesia.”

U.S. officials requested his extradition on his terroristconnection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Malaysia has so far refused,CBS reported.

Sac State University Archives said they currently have norecords of Sufaat in their subject files, their index to The StateHornet and yearbooks. He had no graduating senior photo for the1987 yearbook.