Posted on 04/19/2002 3:35:43 AM PDT by OKCSubmariner
Copyright 2002 by Patrick B. Briley
Witnesses saw a black man at very close range (within several feet) with a group of two other John Does who visited at the Travelers Aid on April 18, 1995 the day before the OKC bombing. The Travelers Aid is one block west of the Murrah building. The men were also observed driving McVeigh’s yellow Mercury Marquee which had been parked across the street from the Travelers Aid.
The other two John Does who were Caucasians have been identified by name from photographs and sketches. This was reported to the Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Inspector General of the DOJ, Glenn Fine in letters from the witnesses in the summer of 2001. The receipt of the letters has been confirmed and acknowledged but nothing adequate has yet to be done about the John Does.
I showed a witness at Travelers Aid a photo of a possible black suspect (see name below) published from the Daily Oklahoman on April 4, 2002. The witness told me that the black man she saw with the other John Does on April 18, 1995 may have been the man in the photo I showed her. The witness said the black man in the photo had all the same facial features and overall shape of face. The black man the witness saw also was the same height as the man in the photo -6 feet to 6 feet one inches tall.
It is very possible that the photo is of the man the witness saw. But even if the man in the photo is not the exact same man that the witness saw, we now know that at the very least the black man the witness saw on April 18, 1995 looks very close to the man in the photo. This is very useful information.
The witness identification is considered reliable because the witness has worked with street people and the FBI for years at Travelers Aid. The witness also is very intelligent and well educated.
There are some differences to be noted however. The photo is of a black man wearing glasses and with a beard and mustache- both not present on the man the witness saw. If it is the same man he may have grown a beard and obtained glasses since 1995.
The photo of the black man I obtained and showed to the Travelers Aid witness came from an April 4, 2002 story that ran in the Daily Oklahoman about a man named Melvin Lattimore. Lattimore was sentenced to prison in early April 2002 according to an article in the Daily Oklahoman by Randy Ellis on April 9, 2002. Lattimore was imprisoned for being a convicted felon in possession of a weapon.
Melvin Lattimore is a black man originally from St Louis. He converted in 1989 to being a Muslim and changed his name to Menepta. Menepta was connected to a mosque in St. Louis that stockpiled large amounts of weapons. He had ties to a Norman, Oklahoma mosque and moved to Norman near OKC at some point.
What caught my attention and prompted me to show Lattimore’s picture to the Travelers Aid witness is the fact that Menepta was Zacharias Moussauoi's roomate in Norman. Moussaoui is now to stand trial for helping the 9/11 attackers.
Then I learned from a New York Times article by Jo Thomas published in November 1995 last year that Menepta's credit card was used in the 1993 WTC attacks. The 1993 WTC attacks were planned at a Hamas sponsored conference in OKC in December 1992 as reported in the video and book, “Jihad in America” by Steve Emerson.
The New York Times article by Thomas also reported that a BATF agent Whitney testified that Menepta had been named in 1995 to the FBI by a government informant as a possible strong suspect in the OKC bombing.
All this information taken together further prompted me to suspect that the black man seen by the Travelers Aid witness with the other John Does was in fact Menepta, or Melvin Lattimore, a native black man from St. Louis.
Some Black Muslims are known to be supportive of Middle Eastern terrorist causes in the US and around the world. Given the connection of Black Muslims to Middle East terrorists and given the very close resemblance of the photo of the Black Muslim Menepta to the man seen by the witness at Travelers Aid, is very possible that it is in fact the same man.
I wonder if Menepta has been put on ice by his felony conviction for safe keeping until more develops or to keep some embarrassing info from coming out on the FBI dropping the ball on Menepta when the FBI was warned by the FBI informant in 1995 that he should be a suspect in the OKC bombing. The FBI and DOJ have said so far that they have found nothing to link Menepta to the 9/11 attacks which is insulting to the publics intelligence if for no other reason than he was Moussaouis roommate. This sounds like FBI and DOJ double speak (shades of Orwell’s “1984”).
The BATF informant at Elohim City, Carol Howe, provided details of her visit to OKC to look into plans for the OKC bombing including a visit to a Black Muslim group facility well known to the OKC police department, possibly connected to the Middle East terror group al Fuqra with offices in California, and one of whose members may have also been a participant in the OKC bombing. A Black Muslim from the OKC group visited by Carol Howe may have been the man seen by my witness at the Traveler’s Aid.
Mike Johnston, an OKC attorney who filed a lawsuit against Iraq recently on behalf of OKC bombing victims and survivors, was told by me about the Travelers Aid story in detail (minus the part about the identity of the black man) last summer. Johnston later called me up to tell me he would not pursue it because of withdrawal of funding by one of his benefactors and clients.
I have called twice and left messages about the Black Muslim connection for Marc Chretian, the senior staffer on Dan Burton’s House government Reform committee looking into evidence about the Middle East connection to the OKC bombing. I talked by phone in person previously to Chretian before learning of the possible identity of the black man seen at Travelers Aid with the other John Does and McVeigh’s Mercury.
However, Chretian is not returning my calls and he is not accepting my calls even when he is in. Chretian did not seem to be interested in any of my information.
There is concern that domestic groups/individuals – Black Muslims like Menepta, some American Indians, NeoNazis, some Christian Identity members, and drug traffickers from Columbia tied to AlQaeda may have worked with Middle eastern groups (Iraq, Hamas, AlQaeda, Abu Sayyef) to help McVeigh. And there is further concern that these same groups may have formed a network which may still be in place to have helped the 9/11 and possible subsequent terror attacks in the US.
Someone responsible in law enforcement and in Congress needs to talk to the Travelers aid witnesses about all the John Does they saw who may belong to groups like the Black Muslims that are sympathetic to Middle Eastern terrorists and may help terrorist attack innocent Americans again.
So far the Senate Judiciary, the House Government Reform Committee and the IG and AG at DOJ have refused. If more innocent Americans are killed by an alliance of domestic and middle eastern terrorists connected to the OKC bombing and the 9/11 attacks, the FBI, DOJ and Congress should get the blame for not adequately investigating the possible networks implicated in the numerous witnesses who have come forward and been deliberately ignored in the OKC bombing case.
The photo is of a black man wearing glasses ...not present on the man the witness saw. If it is the same man he may have .... obtained glasses since 1995.
Maybe he wore his contact lenses some of the time and wore his eyeglasses other times. That's a pretty common routine.
Remember a while back the Wall Street Journal article about the Black Muslims called something like Al-tark ?
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