T1 B26 Patrick Fitzgerald Fdr- Brief- Bio- Press Reports And Testimony- 1st Pgs For Reference 619

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Also on May 7, Siddig Ali announced his new target: the United Nations complex rather than one of the armories would be attacked. GX 301T at 21, 25. Investigation of the armories, he recounted, had shown that they were sometimes used for flea markets, suggesting that a strike would not do much to destroy U.S. munitions. Id. at 22, 31-32. The United Nations, on the other hand, was a prime tool through which the United States operated a "new government which rules the world" and executed resolutions oppressive to Muslims everywhere. Id. at 22, 26.* Moreover, Siddig Ali explained that he had contacts in the Sudanese government mission who would help them obtain the credentials necessary to drive a vehicle laden with explosives into the complex without detection. GX 301T at 22-24, 26-27, 55-57; see also Tr. 5372; GX 307T at 20-23; GX 346T at 33. To avoid mentioning the words "United Nations," Siddig AH admonished that the target would henceforth be called "the big house" -- a term that would distinguish it from the "little (or small) house" -- the codeword applied to the safehouse for bomb building that was also contemplated. GX 301T at 18-19, 32, 39-40, 57, 61. It was also agreed that the word hadduta (Arabic for fairy tale) would be the code word for "bomb." Tr. 5370; GX 30IT at 2-3.

writing might be compromised if the prison meeting were videotaped. GX 307T at 18-19; GX 32 IT at 54. * See also GX 306T at 19 (Siddig Ali asserting that the United Nations is the instrument through which the world is governed by man-made rule rather than God's law), and at 20-21 (equating bombing the United Nations with killing "the leadership of the infidels"); GX 307T at 67 (claiming that the United States was planning to invade Sudan and used the United Nations Security Council to condemn Sudan), and at 12 (observing that a strike against the United Nations would teach the United States and all the world a lesson).

3 Seek Retrial in Bombing of Embassies

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AMERICA

January 23, 2004

3 Seek Retrial in Bombing of Embassies By BENJAMIN WEISER

L

awyers for three terrorists convicted in the 1998 embassy bombings conspiracy case have asked a federal judge in Manhattan for a new trial, citing jury irregularities and other information that they contend could have affected the verdicts. The lawyers cited a newspaper report stating that one juror conducted her own legal research on the Internet, and that two others consulted their pastors about the death penalty. The jurors also learned that the defendants were shackled during the trial, a fact the court tried to conceal with a cloth to preserve the presumption of innocence. The lawyers made their request for a new trial to Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of Federal District Court in a document made public for the first time yesterday. An original version was secretly filed several months ago, but portions were deleted from it before it could be released. In the filing, the lawyers also claimed the government had wrongfully used a jailhouse informant to extract information from one imprisoned defendant, Wadih El-Hage. The lawyers say prosecutors also failed to turn over 647 pages of transcripts of recorded interviews with a crucial prosecution witness, Jamal Ahmed Al-Fadl. Prosecutors have said the recordings were made without their knowledge by the United States Marshals Service, and were not discovered until after trial. The government had no comment and is expected to respond in court. Mr. El-Hage and three co-defendants were convicted in 2001 of conspiring with Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two American Embassies in Africa. All four terrorists received life sentences. The jury irregularities were first detailed in The New York Times last year, in an article based on interviews with 9 of the 12 jurors who sat anonymously in the six-month trial. Another article described the use of the jailhouse informant, Scott Lee Martin, an armed robber who is also suspected of being a member of a white supremacist group. All four terrorists appealed their convictions, but one, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, has since asked to withdraw his appeal, and will also not seek a new trial, his lawyers said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/23/nyregion/23terror.html?pagewanted=print&position=

1/25/2004

Federal News Service October 21, 2003 Tuesday

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Federal News Service October 21, 2003 Tuesday Copyright 2003 Federal News Service, Inc. Federal News Service October 21, 2003 Tuesday SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING LENGTH: 3 1276 words HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY SUBJECT: CRIMINAL TERRORISM INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS LOCATION: 226 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C. WITNESSES: CHRISTOPHER WRAY, CHIEF OF THE CRIMINAL DIVISION, DOJ PATRICK FITZGERALD, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS PAUL MCNULTY, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA SPEAKERS: U.S. SENATOR ORRIN G. HATCH (R-UT) CHAIRMAN U.S. SENATOR CHARLES E. GRASSLEY (R-IA) U.S. SENATOR ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA) U.S. SENATOR JON KYL (R-AZ) U.S. SENATOR MIKE DEWINE (R-OH) U.S. SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS (R-AL) U.S. SENATOR LINDSEY O. GRAHAM (R-SC) U.S. SENATOR LARRY CRAIG (R-ID) U.S. SENATOR SAXBY CHAMBLISS (R-GA) U.S. SENATOR JOHN CORNYN (R-TX) U.S. SENATOR PATRICK J. LEAHY (D-VT) RANKING MEMBER U.S. SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY (D-MA) U.S. SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. (D-DE) U.S. SENATOR HERBERT KOHL (D-WI) U.S. SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA) U.S. SENATOR RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD (D-WI) U.S. SENATOR CHARLES E. SCHUMER (D-NY) U.S. SENATOR RICHARD J. DURBIN (D-IL) U.S. SENATOR JOHN EDWARDS (D-NC) http://www.senate.gQ v/~judiciar^^ SEN. ORRIN HATCH (R-UT): Good morning. I want to welcome everyone to the first in a series of Judiciary Committee hearings that Senator Leahy and I, and others on this committee, are organizing to examine the adequacy of the federal laws designed to protect the American public against acts of terrorism on U.S. soil.

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ederal News Service October 21, 2003 Tuesday

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members who, you know, agreed to defect, and we debriefed overseas and worked with us. It's amazing that we could talk to al Qaeda, but we had a group of people we were not allowed to talk to, and those were the FBI agents across the street in Manhattan, working a parallel intelligence investigation. And we knew then, and we know now, that any system that allows prosecutors to talk to about -- just about anyone in the world, including al Qaeda, but not the FBI agents investigating the same case, was broken. And what the Patriot Act did was to shatter that dysfunctional wall that prevented us from doing our jobs. Let me give you a concrete example of how that came into play involving a person named Ali Mohammad. On August 7th, 1998, two embassies, two American embassies — one in Nairobi, Kenya, and one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania ~ were bombed nearly simultaneously, ten minutes apart. It was quickly clear to us that al Qaeda was involved, and the criminal investigation team deployed to Africa, did some investigative steps, made some arrests over there, and then returned to the United States. At that point in time, we knew about a person named Ali Mohammad, who was a U.S. citizen living in California. He had become a U.S. citizen after serving in the American army from 1986 to 1989. We knew* he had links to al Qaeda, and knew the people over in Nairobi who had carried out the bombing or hadn't left the United States effectively for about five years. He was a person of interest to our investigation. We subpoenaed him to a grand jury in Manhattan, brought him into the grand jury, where he lied, and he left the building. We knew that he plans to fly to Egypt, and we had a decision to make that day ~ do we arrest him, or do we let him go? We had to make that decision without knowing what was on the other side of the wall. We didn't know what evidence we would have from the intelligence investigation. And as we sat and made that decision, we got lucky. We decided to arrest him that night and not let him leave the country. After we made that decision, which we made with only knowing part of our hand because of the wall, we later received the evidence that had been obtained in the intelligence channels, from the intelligence investigation in California. And we found a search had happened, which recovered many documents, including handwritten communications with al Qaeda members, that had we known about would have made our decision a lot easier. Later on, as a result of our further investigation, Ali Mohammad pled guilty, and he admitted in court that he is theone thatJaggelytrained the al Qaeda network in terrorism techniquesTjnllHeirigence and counter-mtelligerice ted^ju^s7'HFrfaiLriec[BJn LadenTAymanlF JZawahiri, tnlfnumbe£jwoJJMoJ^^ military commander, and many others. SEN. HATCH: That's Ali Sheikh Mohammad? MR. FITZGERALD: Ali - this is Ali Mohammad -- his middle name is not Sheikh, it's Ali A. Mohammad from California. And he trained those members. He also conducted the surveillance of the American embassy in Nairobi back in 1993, and showed his surveillance photographs to Osama Bin Laden afterwards. As part of his plea, he admitted that had he not been arrested in New York in September of 1998, he intended to rejoin Osama Bin Laden overseas in Afghanistan. Had we made the wrong decision because we had not seen what was on the other side of that wall, instead of being in that jail, Ali Mohammad could be in a cave in Tora Bora or who knows where else — were he with Osama Bin Laden right. And the notion right here in the public debate that the Patriot Act too quickly took down the wall in a rush after 9/11,1 bang my head against my desk and say it was too late. For 10 years we worked under this sort of broken system where we weren't allowed to know what each other were doing. So, I applaud this committee for taking down the wall and allowing those cases to proceed. I will rely upon my written record and compare now what we do post-Patriot Act. Before, when we had

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Fitzgerald recommends Patrick J

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PATRICK J. FITZGERALD U.S. Attorney Northern District of Illinois Senator Fitzgerald announced his recommendation of Patrick Fitzgerald (no relation) on May 13, 2001. Mr. Fitzgerald was confirmed as U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois on October 24, 2001, and currently serves in that position. Press Releases October 24,2001

Senate confirms Patrick Fitzgerald for U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois October 18, 2001

Senate Judiciary Committee OKs Patrick Fitzgerald for U.S. Attorney; Next step is confirmation by full Senate August 30, 2001

Sen. Fitzgerald acknowledges Patrick Fitzgerald's appointment as Interim U.S. Attorney May 13, 2001

Sen. Fitzgerald to recommend Northern Illinois U.S. Attorney candidate to Bush

Biography

Patrick J. Fitzgerald,* 40, previously served as Co-Chief of the Organized Crime and Terrorism Section in the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Fitzgerald is a native of Brooklyn, New York, the son of Irish immigrants. Fitzgerald attended parochial schools, including Regis High School, where he was awarded a full scholarship. He earned his B.A. from Amherst College in economics and mathematics in 1982. He worked his way through college as a janitor and a doorman during the summers and held a variety of on-campus jobs during the academic year. He received several academic scholarships at Amherst and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received a John Woodruff Simpson Fellowship in Law at graduation. In 1985, he graduated from Harvard Law School, where he taught economics and interned in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts. Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Fitzgerald joined the New York law firm of Christy & Viener (now Salans, Herzfeld, Christy & Viener), where he represented individuals and corporations in civil litigation from 1985 until 1988. In 1988, Fitzgerald became an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York. He began his prosecutorial career by handling significant drug trafficking cases, including United States v. Munoz (nine defendants) and prosecuting major heroin smuggling rings, United States v. Rivera and United States v. Yui Keung Tsoi. In 1993, Fitzgerald and another lawyer prosecuted John Gambino, a capo of the Gambino Crime Family and three other members of the Gambino Crime Family crew for murder, racketeering, gambling, narcotics trafficking, loansharking, and bid-rigging. The defendants were ultimately convicted of a variety of racketeering charges, including murder. For his work on the case, the Justice Department honored Fitzgerald with its Director's Award for Superior Performance. From January through June 1994, Fitzgerald was Chief of the Narcotics Unit of the Office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. In June of 1994, he became counsel in the prosecution of Omar Abdel Rahman and 11 other defendants, who were accused of a seditious conspiracy involving the bombing of the World Trade Center and a plot to bomb the United Nations, the FBI Building in New York, the Lincoln and

http ://fitzgerald. senate.gov/usattorney/patfitzgerald.htm

1 /20/2004

Patrick]. Fitzgerald By MONICA DAVEY many years, put it this way: "His HCAGO, Dec. 30 — For some brain is like a mainframe computhad still wondered whether Pat- er." Mr. Fitzgerald, 43, was born in £ J. Fitzgerald, the United States Brooklyn, the son of Irish immiey here, would really be a§ sive as had been rumored grants. He graduated from Amherst when he arrived a few College, then went on to Harvard years ago from New Law School. He spent 13 years as an line York, the answer came assistant United States attorney in the Southern District of New York, this month. Mr. Fitzgerald an- where, he established himself as a 1 that he was prosecuting the prosecutor of cases involving terrorblican former governor, ism. In the mid-1990's, he helped prosge Ryan, in a scandal that had (.swirling around long before Mr. ecute a case against Sheik Omar erald got here and which many Abdel Rahman, an Egyptian cleric, i thought would never touch the and others accused in a conspiracy [powerful politicians in Illinois, to bomb the World Trade Center and ere Mr. Fitzgerald was, a week in a series of other plots involving the t Christmas, ticking off the de- United Nations, the F.B.I, building in '. a 91-page indictment against New York and the Holland and LinHyan, seemingly from memory, coln tunnels. even Mr. Fitzgerald's forIn 2001, he successfully tried four | opponents in the courtroom say, defendants in connection with the 1998 bombings of United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. He helped lead a criminal investigation into Osama bin Laden and his terror network, Al Qaeda, which led to indictments against Mr. bin Laden, whose whereabouts are unknown. So much time spent dealing with secret matters of national security, his former colleagues said, should prepare him well for the intricacies sic Fitzgerald: dogged, dispas- of the C.I.A. case now before him. "In the course of all of our work, s and endlessly prepared. we dealt with intelligence agencies ', doesn't let anything go," said : Santangelo, who represented and very sensitive information," Mary Jo White, the former top 1 Gambino, who the authorities said federal prosecutor in Manhattan : a crime family captain, in a with whom Mr. Fitzgerald worked uted by Mr. Fitzgerald, for a decade. "He will not let protocol duked it out for about three stand in the way of doing what he land it was quite a duking ses- needs to do and yet he will do it with t me put it to you this way: If all the skills of diplomacy you could croft wanted' any favors on hope for from anybody." e, he went to the wrong guy. Mr. Fitzgerald's arrival in Chiuy is tough." cago in 2001 was controversial. For Attorney General Ashcroft decades, the United States attorney's jj to recuse himself from an in- job here had gone to someone with into who gave the name roots in Illinois, but Senator Peter G. ral Intelligence Agency offi- Fitzgerald, a Republican, pushed for a newspaper columnist, Mr. the appointment of Patrick Fitzgerraid was appointed on Tues- ald, who had no ties here and is no lead the investigation. An- relation to the senator. 5 the assignment in WashingThat irked some politicians who B. Comey, the United had their own local lawyers in mind £ deputy attorney general and a for the job and who did not seem to T and former colleague of Mr. care for the notion of a New Yorker raid's, described him as "Eliot stepping in to the top federal law i a Harvard law degree and enforcement post in the area. s of humor." As United States attorney for the i M. Karas, a co-chief of the District of Illinois, Mr. sm unit in the United States Northern Fitzgerald 300 people, iny's office in Manhattan who cluding 149manages assistant United States with Mr. Fitzgerald for attorneys. He will continue in that role, even as he carries out the inves>T FORGET THE NEEDIEST! tigation into the C.I .A. leak, accord-

prosecutor who led attention with ^indictment of a ler governor.

Associated Press Patrick J. Fitgerald wiH continue his duties in Chicago as he leads an inquiry into the leaking of a C.I.A. officer's name to a columnist.

PROFILE

Patrick J.Fitzgerald BORN: Dec. 22,1960 HOMETOWN: Brooklyn EDUCATION: Regis High School (1978); Amherst College, B.A. (1982); Harvard Law School, J.D. (1985) CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Associate handling civil litigation at Christy & Viener, now Salans, Hertzfeld, Heilbronn, Christy & Viener, New York, 1985-1988; assistant

ing to a news release issued by his office late Tuesday. Through a spokeswoman, Mr. Fitzgerald declined to be interviewed for this article. Instead, the office issued the four-sentence release. "Mr. Fitzgerald will become engaged on the matter immediately," the release said. "Consistent with the usual practice concerning investigations, Mr. Fitzgerald does not intend to comment any further." David N. Kelley, a former colleague of Mr. Fitzgerald's who was recently appointed interim United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Mr. Fitzgerald always seemed to view himself as "an independent prosecutor" of any case he approached — whatever the politics, whatever the players. When he registered to vote in New

United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, 1988-2001, including stints as chief of its narcotics unit, national security coordinator and chief of the Organized Crime-Terrorism Unit; United States attorney for the^Northern District of Illinois, 200f to present. FAMILY: Single

York in 1988, he chose "nonpartisan" as his party affiliation, state records show. Many former colleagues said they were unsure what Mr. Fitzgerald's-political leanings are. "The facts will lead us where they lead us — I think he probably wrote that line," Mr. Kelley said. But Frederick H. Conn, a lawyer who represented a defendant in the embassy bombings case against Mr. Fitzgerald, wondered whether anyone who worked within the Justice Department could truly divorce himself from the subtle pressures that might come along in a case like this. "He is a buHdog," Mr. Conn said. "If anybody from inside the Justice Department has to do it, he'll be as good as anybody. That said, it would be my feeling that it should have been someone from outside."

Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony October 21, 2003 Tuesday

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Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony October 21, 2003 Tuesday Copyright 2003 FDCH e-Media, Inc. (f/k/a Federal Document Clearing House, Inc.) Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony October 21, 2003 Tuesday http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/testimony.cfm?id=965&wit id=2741 SECTION: CAPITOL HILL HEARING TESTIMONY LENGTH: 2054 words COMMITTEE: HOUSE JUDICIARY HEADLINE: EFFORTS TO PREVENT TERRORISM IN THE UNITED STATES TESTIMONY-BY: PATRICK FITZGERALD, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY AFFILIATION: NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS BODY: Statement of The Honorable Patrick Fitzgerald United States Attorney Northern District of Illinois Committee on tfessi?"Judiciary October 21, 200^" Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for asking us here today. I very much look forward to this opportunity to discuss with you the efforts of the United States Attorney's Offices in the investigation and prosecution of terrorists, and particularly how those efforts have changed since the passage of the post-9/11 anti-terrorism tools. You have heard my colleague Chris Wray describe "the wall" that was perceived to separate criminal and intelligence investigators that ended with passage of the Patriot Act. The end of "the wall" was long overdue and was the single greatest change that could be made to protect our country. As a prosecutor who has worked on terrorism matters for nine years now, I thank you on behalf of federal prosecutors, FBI agents and the public for that long overdue change to make America safe. It is nearly impossible to comprehend the bizarre and dangerous implications that "the wall" caused without reviewing a few examples. While most of the investigations conducted when the wall was in place remain secret, a few matters have become public. I was on a prosecution team in New York that began a criminal investigation of Usama Bin Laden in early 1996. The team - prosecutors and FBI agents assigned to the criminal case - had access to a number of sources. We could talk to citizens. We could talk to local police officers. We could talk to other U.S. Government agencies. We could talk to foreign police officers. Even foreign intelligence personnel. And foreign citizens. And we did all those things as often as we could. We could even talk to al Qaeda members - and we did. We actually called several members and associates of al Qaeda to testify before a grand jury in New York. And we even debriefed al Qaeda members overseas who agreed to become cooperating witnesses. But there was one group of people we were not permitted to talk to. Who? The FBI agents across the street from us in lower Manhattan assigned to a parallel intelligence investigation of Usama Bin Laden and al Qaeda. We could not learn what information they had gathered. That was "the wall." A rule that a federal court has since agreed was fundamentally flawed - and dangerous. http://kmesis.swishmail.com/webmail/imp/view.php?thismailbox=INBOX&index=l 255&id... 10/28/03

Testimony

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Testimony United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary Protecting Our National Security from Terrorist Attacks: A Review of Criminal Terrorism Investigations and Prosecutions. October 21,2003 The Honorable Christopher Wray Chief of the Criminal Division , United States Department of Justice http://www.senate.gov/~judiciary/testimony.cfm?id=965&wit id=2740 x j OxO1

STATEMENT OF HRJSTOPHER A. WPvAY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL RIMINAL DIVISION BEFORE THE OMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY UNITED STATES SENATE RESENTED ON OCTOBER 21,2003 INTRODUCTION VIr. Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for asking us here today. I am pleased to be able to discuss with you the Justice Department's efforts in the investigation and prosecution of terrorists, and in the protection of the American people from future terrorist attacks. I am also pleased to discuss low the anti-terrorism tools, overwhelmingly passed by the Congress, have been crucial to those efforts, and particularly how they have helped prosecutors and agents on the "front lines" of the war on terrorism. We have enjoyed key successes: Since the attacks of September 11th, we have charged 284 defendants as a result of terrorism investigations; to date, 152 have been convicted or have pled guilty. The United States government has broken up terrorist cells in Buffalo, Charlotte, Detroit, Seattle, and Portland; five defendants in Portland recently pled guilty to conspiring to travel to Afghanistan to fight for the Taliban and Al Qaeda after September 11th. The communication and cooperation between government agencies has been exceptional and continues to improve. Our friends and allies overseas have been working closely with us to investigate and prosecute a number of major cases; for example, our cooperation with German prosecutors assisted in the conviction of Mounir el Motassadeq in Germany for helping the Hamburg-based Al Qaeda cell behind the September 11th attacks. Through interagency and international cooperation, over half of Al Qaeda's leadership worldwide has been captured or killed. We are dismantling the terrorist financial network: $133 million in assets have been frozen in 660 accounts around the world, and investigations of terrorist financing have led to 27 convictions or guilty pleas to date. Our manpower has increased dramatically: Over 1,000 new and redirected FBI agents have been dedicated to counterterrorism and counter-intelligence, and positions for 250 new Assistant U.S. Attorneys have been authorized. And, thankfully, we have so far not seen another major attack on American soil since September 11,2001, though we are all aware that our enemies continue to plot such attacks and will not willingly give up trying to strike us at home.

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USA v. Ali Mohamed, Guilty Plea In US Embassy Bombings

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24 October 2000 Source: Court Reporters Office of the Southern District of New York See related court docket: http://cryptQme.org/qaedal0200Q.htm This transcript is from an appearance by Ali Mohamed before Judge Sand on October 20, 2000. Mr. Mohamed is one of 17 defendants in the bombing of US Embassies in Kenya and Sudan. And now the only one to plead guilty.

Oaklmohp PLEA

1

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

2 -x

3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

4 S(7) 98 Cr. 1023 (LBS)

V.

5 ALI MOHAMED,

6 Defendants.

7

-x 8 New York, N.Y. October 20, 2000

9 10 11 Before: 12 HON. LEONARD B. SAND, 13

District Judge 14 15 16 17 18 19

APPEARANCES MARY JO WHITE United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York BY: PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, KENNETH M. KARAS, MICHAEL GARCIA,

20

ANDREW c. MCCARTHY,

21

PAUL BUTLER, Assistant United States Attorneys

http://www.politrix.org/foia/courts/usa-v-mohamed.htm

1/23/2004

December 20, 2002 10:23 a.m. EST PAGE ONE December 20, 2002 Friend or Foe: The Story Of a Traitor to al Qaeda Divided Allegiances in Yemen Undo The Betrayer, Who Himself Is Betrayed By ANDREW HIGGINS and ALAN CULLISON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL SANAA, Yemen — Fed up after two decades of Islamist plotting, the veteran Egyptian militant decided to jilt the jihad. In early 1998, he walked into the heavily guarded offices of Yemen's intelligence agency, the Political Security Organization, with a startling proposal: He could help unravel Osama bin Laden's network. He disclosed the hiding places in Yemen of foreign terrorists, including one who would shortly become Mr. bin Laden's chief lieutenant. He described the extremists' weaponry, security and violent plans for the future. He revealed the locations of al Qaeda encampments in and around Marib, a desert region scattered with ruins of the biblical kingdom of Sheba. But instead of cracking down on the militants, members of Yemen's security service tipped them off. Mr. bin Laden's acolytes grabbed their turncoat, grilled him about his treachery and made plans to send him to Afghanistan to be killed. What should have been a triumph in a shadowy struggle against terrorism became an intelligence coup for the terrorists. Safe in Yemen, they went on to launch a string of attacks there, from the bombing of the USS Cole to an assault on a French oil tanker, the Limburg, this fall. On Nov. 3, more than four years after the warning about camps in Marib, the desert region was targeted for a lethal assault — not by the Yemenis but by the Central Intelligence Agency. Monitoring satellite-telephone chit-chat, the CIA tracked two Toyotas carrying suspected al Qaeda members across the desert. An unmanned U.S. spy plane then fired a Hellfire missile that incinerated six people, including Qaed Salim Sinan al-Harethi, a Yemeni suspected of helping organize the Cole attack. The missile strike blew a hole in a diplomatic facade, as well. After Sept. 11, President Bush gave the world a simple choice: "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." Yemen - Mr. bin Laden's ancestral homeland - and other hotbeds of Islamist sentiment such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia declared themselves "with us." Their leaders pledged unequivocal support for the struggle against al Qaeda. But within these nations' bureaucracies, not to mention their citizenries, the lines of loyalty are fuzzy. The U.S.-Yemen relationship is unusually delicate today, after the U.S. asked Spain's

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