FBI Linked To Bombing
by Louis Beam
Tapes made secretly by an FBI informant of conversations between him and his
agency handlers have linked the nations largest law enforcement agency to the
"the most destructive terrorist act in U.S. history."
Emid Ali Salem, an FBI informant used hidden microphones given him by Federal
Bureau of Investigation agents to record his conversations with agents of the
bureau. A Los Angles Times article on 10/28/93 revealed to shocked readers
details of FBI involvement in the terrorist act. FBI spokesmen in Washington
refused comment.
The tapes became public knowledge when they were ordered released by a federal
judge presiding over the case of the indicted suspects. The Justice Department
fought hard to prevent their release. The terrorist bombing of the World Trade
Center left six dead and over a thousand people injured. The tapes which have
been published by the New York Times reveal that Salem warned his FBI bosses
that the World Trade center was soon to be bombed and urged them to prevent
it.
Speculation is now rampant in political circles that certain factions within
the government may have desired the bombing in order to speed passage of new
"anti-crime legislation." This suspicion was further fueled by the startling
revelation that the FBI denied Salem's request to use phony explosives in the
bomb he was helping to build under FBI supervision -- the bomb ultimately used
in the World Trade Center explosion.
Former Watergate associate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste warned that these
tapes pose "an absolute night-mare for federal prosecutors." One high-ranking
law enforcement officer who insisted on secrecy said that in less than a years
time the FBI has been linked to criminal abuse of power and the mishandling of
cases in three different instances. "First we had Weaver, where an HRT member
shot a mother with a baby in her arms, then Waco, where mishandling led to the
deaths of a hundred people, and now the World Trade Center, where it appears
the bombing could not have happened unless the agency let it."
All of this comes on the heals of a internal affairs report by the Justice
Departments Office of Professional Responsibility, linking FBI agents to
everything from drug abuse to shoplifting. OPR's annual report provided
further startling proof that the agency formally most respected for it's law
enforcement skills - has gone bad. The report compiled by Michael Shaheen, the
only person ever to hold the position of counsel to the Office of Professional
Responsibility, cites drug use, bribery, brutality, and other crimes as
"representative examples of misconduct investigated by the office." Shaheen
dutifully noted that his office also monitored several hundred misconduct
cases being handled by the internal investigative unit of the FBI. The FBI is
facing wide spread criticism that the bureau has become a police state agency
enforcing political programs considered unpopular by the American people.
*********************************************************
Blindness and blowback in the World Trade Center case
Robert Perkinson -- Take Cover
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman will probably spend the rest of his life in prison.
Sentenced on Jan. 18 for "hatching" a grandiose anti-Western conspiracy that
included planting bombs all over Manhattan, the 57-year-old cleric faces a
future of almost total isolation. Most likely, he will serve out his days at
the supermaximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado, where, blind and
unable to communicate with English-speaking guards, Rahman will pass some 23
hours a day in his cell alone.
Many reckon that this damned fate is an appropriate dose of American justice.
The New York Daily News applauded the sentencing, and that of nine
co-defendants, as a blow "against the forces of darkness ... who seek to write
their will across the world in blood."
These defenders of "what America is all about," however, might not be so smug
if they stopped to consider what makes Rahman's religious and political
sermons more than isolated cries in the desert. Throughout the sheikh's
career, his supposed foes (including the U.S. government) not only used Rahman
to further their own political agendas, but they also created divisive social
conditions that helped his message spread like fire in the wind.
Most concretely, while Rahman assailed secularists, nonbelievers and Muslim
moderates, he often did so under the sponsorship of major governments. When
Anwar Sadat sought to bolster his rightist regime in the 1970s, for instance,
he enlisted conservative clerics, including Rahman, to help crush the Egyptian
left.
According to legal documents, the CIA first turned to Rahman in 1989. Building
a world army to fight their $10 billion jihad in Afghanistan, the Agency sent
Rahman first to Pakistan and then to the United States to inspire mujahideen
recruits.
Here, in New York and New Jersey, many of Rahman's eager followers learned to
be all that they could be. The Green Beret's Psychological Operations Group in
Fort Bragg provided advanced military training. And, once the new soldiers
were ready, the CIA shipped them off to the Afghani front, where they waged
guerrilla, and often-terrorist, warfare against Soviet occupation. As one
defense attorney described it, Rahman's followers were "on Team America."
Trouble is, Team America tended to get a little out of hand. "After every
covert war," explains Jack Blum, a former investigative counsel for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, "there is an unintended disposal problem." In
spook jargon they call it "blowback."
Unfortunately, we may never know just what blew black from Afghanistan,
because the Rahman trial was among the most farcical in memory. None of the
defendants were convicted of actually bombing the World Trade Center, but only
of "seditiously conspiring" to do so -- a crime defined by a Civil-War-era
statute that allows innuendo, hearsay and taped phone conversations to replace
material evidence.
Dr. Frederic Whitehurst revealed that the FBI's crime lab tried to taint key
evidence in the case. And federal judge Michael Mukasey barred expert
testimony on Islamic thought, despite the fact that Rahman's conviction rested
on his unorthodox interpretations of Islamic law. Most dubiously of all, the
prosecution's case relied almost entirely on the actions and testimony of Emad
Salem, a shadowy figure who worked simultaneously for U.S. and Egyptian
intelligence agencies and was paid up to $1 million for his services.
Salem not only informed on Rahman's inner circle for years but also made key
logistical arrangements and even suggested bombing targets. It was Salem who
rented the infamous "safe house," where defendants ostensibly concocted their
"witches brew" (later revealed to be nonexplosive). Highlighting the issue of
entrapment, Salem bragged to his wife, "I am the shepherd [of the group]
... They are the sheep."
Indeed, reviewing the irregularities of Rahman's trial lends credence to the
defense's assertion that the case was not about any direct crimes (for which
he was not even accused) but about Rahman's intemperate view of the world. As
he told his attorney, Lynn Stewart, after the sentencing, "I am not the first
person to go to jail for his beliefs and I won't be the last."
But even if Rahman and his co-defendants were involved in the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing -- which is near impossible to determine from the travesty of
their trial -- the most unsettling questions remain. Why did Rahman's message
of religious zealotry and antipathy toward the West resonate so powerfully
with his audience? Why was Rahman's claim that the United States and the West
are "enemies of Islam" so easy for many to believe?
These, unfortunately, also are among the easiest questions to answer; for a
review of headlines just over the last few weeks highlights a march of events
in the Muslim world that could incite paranoia even among the most skeptical.
On December 31, for example, Congress approved an $18 million covert operation
to destabilize the government of Iran (a country, incidentally, whose
government already was overthrown once by the United States in 1953).
Some two weeks later, Russian forces leveled the Dagestani village of
Pervomayskoye in their ongoing war against predominantly-Muslim Chechnya.
Already the colonial conflict has killed more than 30,000 people, but it has
yet to illicit even diplomatic condemnation from other Western powers.
Justifying U.S. silence after the most recent attack, Defense Secretary
William Perry explained, "I don't want to ... second-guess ... the Russian
military."
In Algeria, some 40,000 people have lost their lives since 1992, when the
French-supported government annulled democratic elections to block the victory
of the conservative Islamic Salvation Front.
In Egypt -- which, along with Israel ranks among the top recipients of U.S.
foreign aid -- the governing party overwhelmingly won parliamentary elections
in December, after banning religious opposition parties and sentencing
non-violent dissidents to long prison terms from sequestered military
tribunals.
And the list goes on and on: war crimes investigators unearth mass graves
filled with mostly Muslim men and boys in Bosnia; Israel blows the head off a
military leader of Hamas; Bahrain seizes Shiite activists in order to
dismantle "a subversive organization;" and so on.
Thus, it is no small wonder that there might be significant blowback from
Western powers' recent adventures abroad. The United States spared no expense
to create an expansive army of true-believing mercenaries in its contest
against the Soviet Union; it has fostered a world economic order that makes
local cultural autonomy increasingly difficult to preserve; and it has tacitly
approved, and at times directed, a long list of anti-Muslim bloodbaths over
the last half-century.
Thus, while Sheikh Abdel-Rahman may rot his life away in silence, his fiery
rhetoric is unlikely to be forgotten anytime soon. Instead, as Jerusalem Post
editorialist Moshe Zak recently observed, "these mistakes are creating a
dynamic of rage ... of which the end cannot be foreseen."
Return to today's paper.
Copyright 1996 The Yale Daily News
**************************************************
Frederic Whitehurst, FBI Lab Whistleblower Testifying at the World Trade
Center Bombing Trial
August 14, 1995
(Dr. Frederic Whitehurst's efforts to expose scientific fraud in the FBI
laboratory was the subject of an article in The Washington Post, September 14,
1995 and continuation page.)
FBI Pressures Scientists to Lie.
In the aftermath of the world Trade Center bombing of February 26, 1993, the
FBI concocted misleading scientific reports and pressured two leading
scientists to perjure their testimony in order to support its prosecution of
the men accused of the bombing.
The process was described by senior FBI explosives expert Dr. Frederic
Whitehurst during his testimony at the trial on August 14, 1995.
Sewage pipes in the skyscraper broke during the explosion. depositing 80
gallons of sewage throughout the wreckage. The Treasury Department's Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) asked Dr. Whitehurst to analyze some of
this sewage, thinking it was an explosive substance. "Transcript. pg. 16333".
Dr. Whitehurst concluded that there was no sound scientific basis for the
government's public claim that a urea nitrate bomb had been the source of the
explosion. When he refused to recant or to doctor his reports to support the
urea nitrate bomb theory, the FBI used an unqualified lab technician to
testify that the so-called urea nitrate found at the scene was consistent with
a urea nitrate bomb.
Dr. Whitehurst submitted two blind test samples to the lab technician.
Whitehurst had prepared one sample by urinating into a laboratory flask. The
other was a sample of commercial grade fertilizer prepared by FBI Agent
Burmeister. The lab technician found that both samples tested positive for
urea nitrate, the explosive component of the infamous fertilizer bomb.
In other words, Dr. Whitehurst proved that the lab technician, like the ATF,
couldn't tell a bomb from sewage.
The following pages are taken from the transcript of the New York trial for
the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. The extracts begin at page
16315 in the original transcript, and continue consecutively through to page
16354.
Page 16315 Caption Page 16316 Page 16317 Page 16318 Page 16319 Whitehurst
introduced. His background. Page 16320 Page 16321 Page 16322 Page 16323
Page 16324 Whitehurst assigned World Trade Center case. Page 16325 Page
16326 How responsibilities were assigned. Page 16327 Page 16328 Lab
technicians not qualified to give expert opinions. Page 16329 Chemicals
taken from storage locker. Page 16330 Nitric acid, urea taken. Page
16331 Discussion of nitrate and urea. Page 16332 Nitrates in acid raid,
car exhaust, parking lots. Page 16333 Urea in sewage; sewage pipes
burst.
ATF thinks sewage is
explosive. Page 16334 Combination of urea and nitrates can be explosive.
Page 16335 Urea nitrate rarely used as explosive. Page 16336 Urea nitrate
is rare. Page 16337 FBI says urea nitrate bomb. Pressures Whitehurst to
agree. Page 16338 FBI technicians making conclusions on urea nitrate.
Page 16339 Raw data altered; Whitehurst & partner object. Page 16340 Page
16341 Whitehurst urinates in beaker. Partner mixes fertilizer. Page 16342
Dummy solutions given to lab tech: says its urea nitrate. Page 16343 FBI
seniors angry at dummy testing. Page 16344 Immediate senior supports
Whitehurst at first. Page 16345 Then demands change. Page 16346
Whitehurst's reports changed. Page 16347 Told his reports could hurt the
FBI's case. Page 16348 FBI will find another expert. Page 16349 Page
16350 Discussion of changes wanted. Page 16351 Page 16352 Page 16353 Page
16354 Whitehurst transferred to paint analysis.
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This page last updated February 28, 1997
**************************************
From the 'Lectric Law Library's stacks Who Bombed The World Trade Center? Fbi
Bomb Builders
Exposed!!
Combined report by Paul DeRienzo, Frank Morales and Chris Flash From
newspaper _The_Shadow_ Oct. 1994/Jan. 1995 Issue
Two cassette tape recordings, obtained by SHADOW reporter Paul DiRienzo of
telephone conversations between FBI informant Emad Salem and his Bureau
contacts reveal secret U.S. Government complicity in the February 26, 1993
bombing of the World Trade Center in New York City in which six people
were killed and more than a thousand were injured.
After careful deliberation, the SHADOW believes the question regarding the
bombing boils down to the following: Did the FBI do the bombing, utilizing
informant Salem as an "agent provocateur" or did it fail to prevent an
independent Salem and his associates from doing it? The taped
conversations obtained by the SHADOW seem to indicate the former:
FBI Informant Edam Salem: "...we was start already building the bomb which
is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising
supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all informed about it
and we know that the bomb start to be built. By who? By your
confidential informant. What a wonderful great case!"
Who is Emad Salem? FBI bomber, Arab double-agent or just greedy?
Possibly a combination of all three. Salem is a former Egyptian Army
officer who is currently the U.S. government's star witness against
Egyptian cleric Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman, whom the FBI says was the
ringleader in several bombing plots, including the World Trade Center.
Shortly after the bombing at the Twin Towers (World Trade Center) the
U.S. government moved to take Salem into the Witness Protection program.
According to the FBI, Salem was aware of the plot ostensibly because he
had infiltrated Sheik Rahman and his associates. He was recruited as a
government informant shortly after the 1991 assassination of of right-
wing militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. As an associate of Rahman, Salem
traveled in the cleric's inner circle, surreptitiously recording
conversations, and selling his information to the Bureau. But unknown to
his FBI handlers, Salem was also secretly recording his conversations with
them, most likely to protect himself.
According to attorney Ron Kuby, after Salem was taken into the Witness
Protection program on June 24, 1993, he told the feds about the more than
1,000 conversations he had recorded sometime between December, 1991 and
June, 1993. Kuby says that while some of these tapes are not significant,
others contain substantive dealings with Salem and his FBI handlers.
Salem was actually bugging the FBI.
The World Trade Center bombing, along with subsequent alleged plots to
bomb prominent targets in New York City, spawned a number of federal
indictments and trials resulting in the conviction of more than a dozen
men, all of Arabic descent. Salem's exposure as a government informant
who had a year earlier infiltrated the group of men later charged in the
bombing conspiracy caused many to wonder why he and the FBI failed to
provide any warning of the pending World Trade Center bombing.
The answer now appears self-evident. According to William Kuntsler,
attorney for Ibrahim El-Gabrowny, one of those accused in the larger
bombing case, the entire conspiracy was the product of Salem, the
government informant. Kuntsler's law partner Ronald Kuby told the SHADOW
that within hours of the World Trade Center blast, Salem checked into a
midtown hospital, complaining of a loud ringing in his ears. There is a
growing belief that some of the four men charged and since convicted and
jailed for the World Trade Center bombing, Mohammed Aboulihma, Mohammed
Salameh, Nidal Ayyad and Ahmad Ajaj, may be innocent [victims] of a
government frame-up.
Attorneys for those convicted have maintained that the government's case
is circumstantial at best, with no evidence or motive linking the accused
with the bombing. The FBI and federal prosecutors have not as yet
responded to questions over the lack of warning of the attack on the Twin
Towers, despite the strategic placement of their informant.
Two possible scenarios emerge. One: Salem is a rogue FBI informant who
created the conspiracy to bomb the World Trade Center for the money his
information about the plot (minus his role) would bring. An attorney for
one of the convicted men told the SHADOW that Salem was an FBI informant
from November of 1991 to the summer of 1992. The attorney says that the
FBI became aware of the World Trade Center bombing plot through informant
Salem during this period, but they refused to believe his information or
pay Salem's exhorbitant fees. In fact, the feds claimed that they dropped
Salem as an informant during the summer of 1992 after he refused or failed
a lie detector test. This left Salem with a bombing plot but no one to
sell it to.
According to the attorney, Salem let the plot that he hatched go forward
and the World Trade Center was bombed so that he could get money and
publicity. The attorney says that within 48 hours of the bombing, the FBI
requested Salem to help them solve the case. Salem quickly pointed the
fingers at the defendants, all followers of Sheik Rahman.
So, who did it? From the above point of view, Salem constructed the bomb
plot with those whom he subsequently set up. The U.S. government and its
FBI were innocent bystanders who failed to prevent the carnage due to
their unwillingness to take Salem's claims seriously, despite his close
collaboration with Bureau agents for the better part of a year.
The other scenario looks like this: Informant Salem organized the bomb
plot with the "supervision" of the FBI and the District Attorney as part
of a classic entrapment setup. He befriended certain individuals,
possibly some of the defendants, convinced them that his intentions to
bomb the World Trade Center were sincere, and convinced them to get
involved. The bomb goes off. Greedy Salem, with his ears still ringing,
sells out his accomplices while attempting to sell more information to the
Bureau. In order to protect him and their relationship, the FBI
sequesters Salem and utilizes him against the real target of the FBI,
Sheik Rahman.
In one of the taped conversations between Salem and "Special Agent" John
Anticev, Salem refers to him and the Bureau's involvement in making the
bomb that blew up the World Trade Center. As Salem is pressing for money
while emphasizing his value as a Bureau asset, the conversation moves in
and out of references to the bombing and the FBI's knowledge of the bomb
making:
FBI: But ah basically nothing has changed. I'm just telling you for my
own sake that nothing, that this isn't a salary but you got paid regularly
for good information. I mean the expenses were a little bit out of the
ordinary and it was really questioned. Don't tell Nancy I told you
this. (Nancy Floyd is another FBI agent who worked with Salem in his
informant capacity. The second tape obtained by the SHADOW is of a
telephone conversation between Salem and Floyd -Ed.)
SALEM: Well, I have to tell her of course.
FBI: Well then, if you have to, you have to.
SALEM: Yeah, I mean because the lady was being honest and I was being
honest and everything was submitted with receipts and now it's
questionable.
FBI: It's not questionable, it's like a little out of the' ordinary.
SALEM: Okay. I don't think it was. If that what you think guys, fine,
but I don't think that because we was start already building the bomb
which is went off in the World Trade Center. It was built by supervising
supervision from the Bureau and the DA and we was all informed about it
and we know what the bomb start to be built. By who? By your
confidential informant. What a wonderful great case! And then he put his
head in the sand I said "Oh, no, no, that's not true, he is son of a
bitch." (Deep breath) Okay. It's built with a different way in another
place and that's it.
FBI: No, don't make any rash decisions. I'm just trying to be as honest
with you as I can.
SALEM: Of course, I appreciate that.
----- Brought to you by - The 'Lectric Law Library The Net's Finest Legal
Resource For Legal Pros & Laypeople Alike. http://www.lectlaw.com
******************************************
Save Your Children by Tad Hinnenkamp '00
On February 26, 1993, the World Trade Center in New York City was
bombed. Six people were killed and more than one
thousand were injured. When the smoke had not yet cleared, a five-headed
monster who ate children was the culprit. It's name was
"Islamic Fundamentalism." Terror struck this land of freedom as parents
threatened that the "Islamic Fundamentalism" monster would
get them if they did not say their prayers. And to top it off, the man
pulling the strings of this monster was none other than a blind
doctor who preached Islam. In the end, 12 monsters were convicted, all
of Arab descent.
Here are some of the facts in the Trade Center Bombing. Fact. There was
secret U.S. government complicity in the bombing. The
FBI probably utilized an informant, Ehmad Salem, as an "agent
provocateur" (which is illegal). Salem is a former Egyptian Army
officer who was the "star witness" against Dr. Omar Abdel Rahman, whom
the FBI says was the ringleader in several bombing plots,
including the World Trade Center. Salem was an associate of Rahman and
was secretly recording his conversations and selling them
to the FBI. But Salem was also recording his conversations with the FBI.
There is a growing belief that some of the four men
convicted for the World Trade Center Bombing may be victims of a
government cover up. The government's case was circumstantial
at best, with no evidence or motive linking the accused with the
bombing.
Fact. Either Salem constructed the bomb plot with those he later set up,
with the U.S. government and FBI being innocent but stupid
for failing to prevent the bombing due to Salem's unreliability (despite
his close collaboration with the Bureau agents for over a year),
or the informant Salem organized the bomb plot under FBI and District
Attorney "supervision" as part of an entrapment setup (Salem
recorded FBI agents telling him to use real explosives instead of fake
ones). With the evidence, it seems the latter is more likely.
Salem probably befriended certain individuals, possibly some of the
convicted, and convinced them that his intentions to bomb the
World Trade Center were actually sincere and he convinced them to become
involved. The bomb went off and Salem sold out his
accomplices while selling more information to the FBI (he was getting a
lot of money for this information). The FBI had to protect him
and their relationship, so they utilized him against the real target of
the FBI, Dr. Rahman.
Although Dr. Rahman was not found guilty of the bombing (they had
absolutely no evidence), they did find him guilty of "seditious
conspiracy to oppose the U.S. government by force and violence." This
was actually never proven in court, but based solely on the
testimonies of ridiculously paid FBI informants. As ex-Attorney General
Ramsey Clark stated, "Sheikh Rahman committed no crime
and the United States knows it...the United States wants to falsely
label him as a terrorist."
So why is Dr. Rahman currently being held as a political prisoner since
the authorities aren't claiming that Rahman did anything? It's
because he's an internationally known Arab Muslim scholar with a PhD,
one who has very different political ideas than the U.S.
government. It was an excuse to make Islam and Arabs look evil so the
U.S. could have a good excuse (besides the FBI wanting a
scapegoat for their major screw-up in the World Trade Center bombing) to
oppose Third World Muslim regimes and label them
terrorists and then, possibly (this is just a thought), exploit the
countries through imperialistic policies with little U.S. opposition...when
the time is right.
Many Arab Americans have pointed out that since the two major bombings
in the U.S. there has been a series of legislation and
various orders enacted to deprive Arab Americans and other legal Arab
residents of their freedoms and rights. With the enactment of
the Omnibus Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, the
Executive Order of 1995 (which basically labels
Palestinian groups who have different views than the U.S. concerning the
Israeli-Arab peace processes as terrorist organizations) and
legislation which deprives people of due process such as the use of
"secret evidence" are examples of unfair targeting. This has
silenced and stifled Arab activism. Many Arab Americans have indicated
how the government is manipulating the grand jury system
to basically serve foreign interests and to incriminate Arabs because of
their political beliefs.
It is now a criminal offense to internationally fundraise and give
humanitarian aid because of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996. The law
makes it illegal to raise and contribute funds, donate educational and
humanitarian aid, or provide lodging or material support to
certain foreign groups. Ten years in jail is the penalty. Also, certain
political groups abroad were designated as terrorist organizations.
Terrorist is defined as any group that partakes in hostage taking,
sabotage of a vehicle, and the use of a firearm or explosive with the
intent to endanger directly or indirectly the safety of someone or cause
damage to property.
Thus, now any liberation movement that
takes up arms against a repressive regime that is friendly with the U.S.
government might receive a terrorist label (Nelson Mandela's
ANC would have been considered terrorist under apartheid).
Once an organization is deemed "terrorist," anyone who makes donations
or funds to a school or clinic funded by that organization
could get 10 years. And for some odd reason, five out of the six
countries the State Department considers supporters of international
terrorism are Arab or Muslim. The law thus ignores repressive regimes
that are pro-U.S. (there are dozens) such as Israel which
engages in state sponsored terrorism against the Palestinians, Syrians,
and Lebanese under its rule or occupation, and which has
legalized torture.
If I send money to the Democrats, Republicans, Likud (who has ordered
the bombing of Lebanon and has assassinated many leaders
) or Labor parties of Israel, I will suffer no consequences. But if I
send money to the Hamas that may fund hospitals for children
suffering against Israeli brutality, it is illegal. This is a violation
of the First Amendment, for I am expressing my opinion when I support
a certain party, such as I could be supporting the right of Israel to
occupy Palestine if I give money to the Likud Party.
The difference
between giving to Likud or Hamas is the political message, one of which
the U.S. government supports, the other which it does not.
This Anti-Terrorism Law and purposeful poor depiction of Arabs and Islam
with the World Trade Center Bombing are nothing more
than the U.S. government chilling and controlling political expression,
the free exchange of ideas, and the right to associate politically
and religiously throughout the U.S. and the world. Political prisoners
are created in numerous numbers because of these bigoted
policies. These laws must be repealed if there is to be any justice and
freedom to express one's own political and religious beliefs.
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Last updated May 6, 2000.
**********************************
Man Charged in Bombing of New York Skyscrapers
By Malcolm Gladwell The Washington Post
NEW YORK
Federal agents Thursday charged a Jordanian-born man living in Jersey City,
identified as Mohammed A. Salameh, with involvement in last Friday's bombing
of the World Trade Center.
Salameh was arrested in Jersey City Thursday morning after investigators
determined that a van he had rented "on or about" Feb. 23 had carried the
bomb. He was brought to federal court in Manhattan this evening and charged
with "aiding and abetting" the destruction of the World Trade Center complex
Friday "by use of an explosive device causing the death of at least five
individuals."
According to the complaint read during the hearing, investigators Thursday
searched the Jersey City address Salameh gave on the rental agreement and
found "tools, wires, circuitry, electromagnetic devices" as well as explosives
residue.
A slight, bearded man who was dressed in a gray sweatsuit, Salameh did not
speak during the proceedings, which were translated for him into Arabic.
Robert Precht, a federal public defender representing Salameh, said the
suspect, who was born in Jordan, had declared himself "completely innocent of
the charges." A bail request was denied.
No details were given at the hearing about Salameh's possible motives. But a
senior law enforcement official, who asked not to be identified, said that
"this has all the appearances of being a terrorist act."
The official said that investigators believe the bombing may have been
connected to the second anniversary of Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait at the
end of the Persian Gulf War, and speculated that Salameh was a "surrogate" for
others connected with Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
At a news conference in Washington, acting Attorney General Stuart M. Gerson
hinted that more arrests may be forthcoming. "It's a remarkable day in the
history of the FBI," Gerson said.
The unexpected developments Thursday, which come after a week in which police
and federal agents repeatedly expressed pessimism about the early solution of
the case, stem from what investigators said was a series of fortunate and
unlikely developments.
According to the documents filed by the FBI at the hearing Thursday, Salameh
rented a Ford Econoline Van in his own name from a Ryder truck rental agency
in Jersey City at some point during the week of the bombing. Several hours
after the noontime explosion Friday, he returned to the agency and reported
that the van had been stolen.
On Tuesday or Wednesday this week, investigators sifting through the rubble in
the parking garage under the World Trade Center found fragments of a vehicle
with an identification number corresponding to the number of the missing van,
which had been listed in a nationwide computer directory of stolen
vehicles. From the position and appearance of the pieces, they strongly
suspect that the fragment had come from the vehicle that carried the bomb.
The FBI said that their suspicion that Salameh was involved was confirmed when
they examined the rental documents that he handed over the Ryder clerk when he
first reported the van was stolen last Friday. They were covered with traces
of the chemical nitrates, which is common to many explosives.
Thursday morning, Salameh returned to the agency with police documents
confirming that he had reported the vehicle stolen, and asked for return of
the $400 deposit he had placed on the vehicle when he rented it. As he left
the agency, he was arrested by police.
Asked why, if he is guilty, Salameh would have been no naive as to rent the
truck in his own name, report it stolen to the agency and the police, and
return twice to the agency to attempt to retrieve his deposit, the senior law
enforcement official said: "Who knows. Just because he's a terrorist, doesn't
mean he's a brain surgeon. ... Call it good investigating."
The FBI complaint read Thursday night in court said that Salameh had provided
a telephone number "in connection with the rental agreement" that was traced
to a person named Josie Hadas, at a Jersey City address. A search of the Hadas
apartment Thursday afternoon had discovered "among other things, a letter
addressed to the defendant, tools and wiring, and manuals concerning antennae,
circuitry and electromagnetic devices."
"A law enforcement officer trained as a bomb technician has examined these
materials," the FBI said, "and concluded that they constitute evidence of a
`bomb maker' at the location. Lastly, a dog trained in the detection of
explosives responded positively to a closet space within the apartment."
As of Thursday evening, police had released few details about what several law
enforcement sources said they believe to be Salameh's ties to radical Islamic
fundamentalists.
One hint, however, came from the fact that the FBI also Thursday searched the
Brooklyn apartment of Ibrahim Elbrawgone, the brother of El-Sayyid A. Nosair,
the 37-year-old Egyptian-born Arab American accused and subsequently acquitted
in 1991 of shooting Zionist extremist Rabbi Meir Kahane. Nosair is in prison,
having been convicted of weapons charges and assault in connection with the
Kahane killing.
Elbrawgone was also arrested Thursday after allegedly hitting an FBI agent
during the search.
Nosair attended the Jersey City mosque headed by radical Islamic cleric Sheik
Omar Abdul Rahman, who has been living in exile in New Jersey for the past two
years. Rahman was acquitted in Egyptian court of involvement in the 1981
assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat. He has been under
investigation by U.S. law enforcement officials for possible involvement in a
number of crimes, including the shooting of a Brooklyn man and the 1990
killing of Kahane. U.S. immigration officials confirmed that in 1991 they took
action to expel Rahman from the country, but said the proceedings are still
pending before an immigration judge.
According to some media reports, Salameh, like Nosair, attended Rahman's
Jersey City mosque.
The federal official said Salameh was "not unknown" to the FBI.
Michael Warren, who was Nosair's attorney and who identified himself as
representing Nosair's brother, denied any connection yesterday between his
client and Salameh.
"A whole lot of innocent people are getting dragged into this," Warren said.
"It's a thinly veiled disguise on the part of the FBI to make a scapegoat of
people who are simply practicing religious individuals."
Thursday's arrest was an dramatic development in the bomb investigation, which
federal agents had publicly said they believed could drag on for months.
The blast, which killed five and injured more than 1,000, was so powerful that
it destabilized the entire area around the site of the explosion, meaning that
investigators had not yet begun the kind of intensive examination of the bomb
site that usually is necessary to yield important clues.
In the case of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Scotland 4{ years ago,
for example, it was not until four months after they began sifting through the
wreckage of the plane that investigators found a tiny electronic component
that enabled them to definitively link the bomb to Libyan terrorists.
Copyright 1993 by The Tech. All rights reserved. This story was published on
Friday, March 5, 1993. Volume 113, Number 11 The story was printed on page 2.
This article may be freely distributed electronically, provided it is
distributed in its entirety and includes this notice, but may not be reprinted
without the express written permission of The Tech. Write to
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