Posted on 10/07/2001 6:35:54 PM PDT by Wallaby
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
HEARTLAND CONSPIRACY JIM CROGAN LA Weekly; News; Pg. 15 September 28, 2001, Friday
It is obvious material for conspiracy buffs: Did Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols really act alone, or was some larger terrorist outfit behind the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building?
In Oklahoma City, an investigative reporter began asking the question long before the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Jayna Davis, in a series that aired on KFOR-TV in 1995, examined the possible existence of John Doe No. 2, a man witnesses saw with McVeigh outside the federal building moments before the bomb went off, killing 168 people. Her reports also raised questions about the purpose of several trips Nichols made to the Philippines, into areas in which terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden were known to hide out. Davis herself no longer freely talks about her work. She has been sued by a subject of her reports and advised by her attorneys not to grant interviews. Earlier this year, however, she appeared on Fox Network's The O'Reilly Factor and spoke at length about her investigation: "And what we discovered, an intelligence source at one of the highest levels in the federal government later confirmed, was a Middle Eastern terrorist cell living and operating in the heart of Oklahoma City . . . We have (22) sworn witness affidavits that tie seven to eight Arab men to various stages of the bombing plot . . . It really is a foreign conspiracy masterminded and funded by Osama bin Laden, according to my intelligence sources."
According to a motion filed by McVeigh's defense team, an American fitting Nichols' description met with Yousef in 1992 or 1993 in the Philippines.
McVeigh went to his grave denying any foreign involvement in the bombing. His accomplice, Terry Nichols, swore they acted alone, and no proof of a wider plot ever surfaced.
The arrests of McVeigh and Nichols came quickly and closed the case for many. Less than two hours after the bombing, a state trooper stopped McVeigh's 1977 Mercury Marquis 80 miles from Oklahoma City because it was missing a license plate. Two days later, Nichols, who was at his Kansas farm on the day of the bombing, surrendered to police.
Minutes after the bombing, however, police radios carried a description of a brown Chevrolet pickup with "two Middle Eastern men" inside seen speeding away from the federal complex. A short time later and without explanation, police withdrew the all-points bulletin. The mystery over the truck became the starting point for Davis' investigation.
Davis found people in Oklahoma City who said they remembered seeing McVeigh meet with several men they describe as Middle Eastern in the months before the bombing. She also uncovered confidential warnings that a congressional task force issued about a possible Islamic-fundamentalist terror attack on "America's heartland" one month before the Oklahoma bombing.
Davis, in her early reports, makes it clear she is not certain of a connection between McVeigh and any terrorist group. And certainly witnesses were primed to view anyone who looked suspicious as "Middle Eastern" in the hours right after the bombing. What Davis wants, she said, is a full federal inquiry into the matter. One big-name lawyer trying to get such an investigation rolling is David Schippers, former chief counsel to the House of Representatives managers who conducted Bill Clinton's impeachment trial. "I've been practicing law for 40 years, and I know what bullshit is," said Schippers. "Jayna gave me a stack of affidavits, signed by credible witnesses, connecting McVeigh to Middle Easterners living in Oklahoma City. She also gave me a ton of supporting documents. I've reviewed this material, and I'm convinced there are solid leads here that need to be investigated."
Schippers said he is trying to get the material to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft. "I made some calls, but no one would give me the time of day," he said. "I tried like hell to get to Ashcroft, but I just couldn't break through." He said he has not given up, but would not disclose his plans to get a full airing for Davis' findings.
The reports, which aired on KFOR in the months after the Oklahoma City bombing, are based on witness statements, court records, government documents and unnamed sources. A federal court order dismissing a lawsuit filed against Davis mentioned several of her findings, which include:
- A brown Chevrolet truck similar to one seen leaving the federal building had been parked a few weeks earlier -- twice, in fact -- at Samara Properties, according to two employees at the Oklahoma City property-management company owned by Dr. Samir Khalil. In 1991, Khalil pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and spent eight months in federal prison. According to court documents, Khalil denied FBI allegations that linked him to the Palestinian Liberation Organization. Six months before the bombing, Khalil had hired a group of Iraqis for painting and construction work. On the day of the bombing, a former co-worker told Davis they reacted to the news with unrestrained joy. "They even praised Saddam Hussein, vowing to die in his service," a source stated in an affidavit. On April 27, police found a Chevrolet pickup abandoned at an apartment complex in Oklahoma City, stripped of its license plate, inspection tag and other identifying numbers. It had been painted yellow, though it was clear its original color was brown. One resident told Dallas FBI Agent Jim Ellis that the driver was "clean-shaven, with an olive complexion, dark wavy hair, and broad shoulders," in his late 20s or early 30s, and of Middle Eastern descent. The resident also identified him as a Samara employee from KFOR's pictures.
- An FBI sketch of John Doe No. 2 resembled a Samara employee who described himself as a political refugee who had served in the Iraqi army. The TV station did not name him and digitized his photos to hide his identity. Later, Hussain Al-Hussaini came forward and said he was the man identified by several witnesses as possibly being John Doe No. 2, and sued the station and Davis for defamation and libel, saying he could be easily recognized from their coverage. (Al-Hussaini withdrew the state case, and a federal judge dismissed a second case; Al-Hussaini has appealed.)
- In an affidavit, a waitress said McVeigh and someone resembling Al-Hussaini came into her bar on April 15. The waitress said the man she had identified from a KFOR photo lineup "asked me if I was married. He spoke with an accent . . . a Middle Eastern accent." She also said the FBI had interviewed her, and showed her photos and sketches of possible suspects. The photos were presumably taken from surveillance cameras near the Murrah Building. The FBI took possession of videos recorded by those cameras on April 19, and has refused to release them.
- In an affidavit, Mike Moroz, a worker at Johnny's Tire Service, a few blocks from the Murrah Building, said that at about 8:30 a.m. on April 19, the day of the bombing, McVeigh pulled up in his Ryder truck and asked for directions. He insisted there was another man sitting in the truck cab. Moroz told Davis he had picked McVeigh out of a live FBI lineup. He also said Al-Hussaini, as shown in one of KFOR's surveillance photos, could have been the man he saw.
- A patron at the Social Security office at the Murrah Building, who was wounded in the blast, told Davis she was standing 12 feet away when the Ryder truck pulled up. She said she saw McVeigh and a "foreign-looking man with an olive complexion and thick black curly hair poking out of a ball cap" get out of the truck. She also gave this information to the FBI, even describing the insignia on the cap of the person with McVeigh. She identified him as possibly being Al-Hussaini from KFOR's photos.
- Employees and guests at a motel near downtown Oklahoma City reported seeing McVeigh with several Middle Eastern men in the months before the bombing. One of those men was identified from KFOR's surveillance photos of Samara Properties as possibly being Al-Hussaini. The others were identified as fellow employees of Al-Hussaini. McVeigh reportedly stayed at the motel, under the name of Bob Kling, an alias he had used before, according to the FBI. The witnesses said they had often seen several of the men moving large barrels around in the back of an old white truck that frequently broke down on the lot. The barrels smelled of diesel, they said, an ingredient in the bomb that destroyed the federal building. According to an FBI report, an Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent confiscated the motel's registration records and logs.
- In a hidden-camera interview, Terry Nichols' ex-wife told of his trips to the Philippines. "Tim bought Terry the first ticket for the Philippines" in 1989, she said. Nichols, who eventually married a woman from Cebu City, traveled, often without his new wife, back and forth to the Philippines, considered by some a hotbed for terrorist activity. His last visit came in November 1994. Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted of masterminding the 1993 Trade Center bombing and a plot to blow up U.S. airliners, operated out of Mindanao and Manila; Yousef received funding from Osama bin Laden; and, according to a motion filed by McVeigh's defense team, an American fitting Nichols' description met with Yousef in 1992 or 1993 in the Philippines.
- Yossef Bodansky, the executive director of the U.S. House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, told Davis that terrorist organizations linked to Iran and Syria had been talking about a U.S. terror campaign since late 1994. The task force issued the first of several confidential warnings to federal agencies on February 27, 1995. It said that "Striking inside the U.S. is presently a high priority of Tehran" and went on to warn of attacks on "airports, airlines, telephone systems etc." An update, issued on March 3, 1995, said there was a "greater likelihood that the terrorists would strike at the heart of the U.S." Israeli intelligence sources warned one month before the Oklahoma City bombing that an impending terrorist attack would use "lily whites," which, Bodansky explained, are "people without any distinct background, record of any kind . . . who will never be suspected members of a terrorist group."
It is not clear how or whether all of this adds up. Davis has struggled to get the results of her investigation to the public. Twice, she has been sued for libel and defamation, in state and federal courts, by Al-Hussaini, who stepped forward on June 15, 1995, and said that he was living in fear since KFOR and Davis fingered him. He said he was at work when the bombing occurred and denied knowing McVeigh. The federal judge who dismissed his lawsuit said Al-Hussaini's claim that he was at work at the time of the bombing was false.
Nineteen months after Al-Hussaini sued in state court, he dropped his lawsuit. Davis said the legal pressure led KFOR to halt airing new material from her bombing investigation. In 1996, Palmer Communications sold the station to the New York Times Co., which was not interested in pursuing the story, Davis said. On March 3, 1997, she resigned.
In September 1997, Davis was subpoenaed by the Oklahoma County grand jury, which was looking into the possibility of conspirators in the bombing. Davis gave the jury all of her witness statements. The next day, Al-Hussaini refiled his libel suit in federal court, and two months later, it was dismissed. U.S. District Judge Tim Leonard said that Davis' reports are either true or statements of opinion. Al-Hussaini appealed, and a hearing was held this month, but no ruling has been made.
For years, the FBI has refused to comment on Davis' report. This week, the response was no different when the agency was contacted by the L.A. Weekly. Davis has tried twice, with the permission of her sources, to deliver the 22 witness affidavits to the FBI office in Oklahoma City. In 1997, agents said her lawyers needed to first contact federal prosecutors. Her attorney, Tim McCoy, said federal prosecutors rejected the offer, saying they would have to release the documents to McVeigh's and Nichols' defense teams if they accepted them. In 1999, Davis and another attorney who represented her, Dan Nelson, met with Agent Dan Vogel and got him to accept the documents. He, in turn, gave them to the FBI task force investigating the bombing. "However, I was told we gave the affidavits back to her because there was some question of ownership -- whether she or KFOR had legal rights to the material," said Vogel, who has since retired. Asked whether he thought it was odd that the FBI would reject potential leads, Vogel would only say, "That was a decision made by people above me."
Davis can't figure out why the FBI refuses to examine her material. "They had hundreds of agents on this case," Davis told Bill O'Reilly. "Why wouldn't they want to take information from a reporter who had sworn witness statements implicating . . . others in the Oklahoma City bombing?"
This really doesn't make any sense. Does Schippers actually believe that the current administration isn't aware of this info and/or what really happened? Who the hell is going to give this a "full hearing"? Nobody with power cares. So who?
But McVeigh investigators turned up an alleged statement from Edwin Angeles, a jailed Filipino terrorist, that he met Nichols in 1992 or early 1993 at a meeting on the island of Mindanao. Also at the meeting, Angeles said, was Ramzi Yousef, the accused mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing.PHILIPPINESAngeles claimed the meeting centered on bombing activities, providing firearms and ammunition and training in bomb making, McVeigh's lawyers told the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in March.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
Anzar's disclosure is supported by police and military intelligence reports that state Bin Laden and Khalifa in 1992 set up the International Islamic Relief Organization Inc. (IIRO) with offices in Makati and in several cities in Mindanao as a front organization for funding terrorist activities. The IIRO, according to the intelligence report, was working under the Muslim World League, an organization wholly financed by the Saudi Arabia government. "The IIRO which claims to be a relief institution is being utilized by foreign extremists as a pipeline through which funding for the local extremists is being coursed," the intelligence report noted. Bin Laden has used his personal fortune to finance terrorist activities all over the world. US authorities had fingered Bin Laden as the mastermind of the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 which killed 257 persons and wounded more than 5,000. Though Khalifa has denied involvement in Bin Laden's activities, he had admitted "very close ties in the past." The second of Khalifa's four wives is the sister of Bin Laden. Through Khalifa, who lived in the country for nine years, a Stratfor intelligence report said that "Bin Laden's network is already deeply entrenched in the Philippines." Education It was the MWL-IIRO that established the Al-Makdhum University in Zamboanga City which started accepting Islamic students in 1992, the intelligence report said. According to the report, the IIRO also offers scholarship to qualified students who have the potential to be Islamic scholars. They then are tasked to indoctrinate other Muslims on terrorist tactics. In an interview with the INQUIRER, Anzar said the IIRO was used by Bin Laden and Khalifa to distribute funds for the purchase of arms and other logistical requirements of the Abu Sayyaf in the guise of relief and livelihood projects for Muslim communities in Mindanao. "Only 10 to 30 percent of the foreign funding goes to the legitimate relief and livelihood projects and the rest go to terrorist operations," Anzar added. "The IIRO was behind the construction of mosques, school buildings and other livelihood projects in areas penetrated, highly influenced and controlled by the Abu Sayyaf," Anzar said. The IIRO provides a steady supply of clothing, canned goods, rice and other necessities to impoverished Muslim communities. "Bin Laden and Khalifa saw that the Muslim people needed help but he wanted immediate results, which he could not expect from the MILF. So he founded and funded the Abu Sayyaf, the Muslims' terrorist arm," he explained Al Haj Murad, MILF vice chair for military affairs, had confirmed to the INQUIRER two years ago that Bin Laden and Khalifa provided "help and assistance" to MILF cadres who volunteered in the 1980s to help the Taliban struggle against the Soviet-backed Afghanistan government. Original Abu The original Abu Sayyaf was headed by Aburajak Abubakr Janjalani and another faction was led by Galib Andang, aka Commander Robot, who broke away from the Moro National Liberation Front after the formation of the Southern Philippines Council for Peace and Development under former Moro National Liberation Front chief Nur Misuari. Anzar said Bin Laden and Khalifa financed the urban warfare and terrorism training in Libya of their recruits to the Abu Sayyaf, including Janjalani and Edwin Angeles, the founding Abu Sayyaf vice commander and intelligence chief. It was Angeles who recruited Anzar to the Abu Sayyaf. After undergoing advanced Islamic studies, Anzar became the group's liaison officer and Angeles' right-hand man. When Angeles returned from Libya, he allegedly carried out the bombing of the Jolo Cathedral in Sulu in 1991. Bin Laden and Khalifa also funded the three-month commando training course of the recruited Abu Sayyaf members in March 1993 in Patikul, Sulu, Anzar recounted. Khalifa served as one of the advisers of the Abu Sayyaf, the intelligence report noted, which was also confirmed by Anzar. Records show the IIRO, a non-stock, non-profit organization, was registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Sept. 20, 1991 with Khalifa as president and chair of the board of trustees.
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Based on the SEC documents obtained by the INQUIRER, the IIRO's primary objectives are: * To provide humanitarian services which will develop and elevate the educational, social and health aspects among the communities in the Philippines. * To assist victims of natural and man-made calamities in the Philippines by giving financial assistance and relief goods, clothing, etc. * To own, acquire, purchase, lease, sell, convey, transfer and establish orphanage centers, mosques, machinery equipment. * To accept donations and contributions from national and foreign sources. * Other incidental purposes not mentioned above. The IIRO is expected to exist for 50 years from and after the date of incorporation in 1991. Anzar said it was the objective "other incidental purposes not mentioned above" that became the priority of Bin Laden and Khalifa's group. Asked why Bin Laden and Khalifa were supporting the Moro terrorists, Anzar said: "Any Muslim community that the Philippine government wanted to control got help." "Bin Laden and Khalifa knew the Muslim people are no match for the resources and logistics of the Philippine government. So they decided to pour in funds to help us through the IIRO. It's a legal bank-to-bank transaction and a legitimate relief organization but the bulk of the funds go to terrorist operations," Anzar said. "Based on our doctrine that Bin Laden and Khalifa share, if you are a Muslim, you are obliged to help reach your goal-to establish an Islamic state-even by force," he stressed. He explained that if the Muslim could not personally engage in combat, he or she could help through spiritual or material aspects. "Spiritual help means we pray for the success of the operations and material is logistics," he said. "In the case of Bin Laden and Khalifa, they are not combatants, so they give material support. Money. Lots of money," Anzar explained. The money was used, he said, primarily to create chaos and embarrass the Manila government. "See, if there are bombings, kidnappings and killings, there will be no peace and development. Local and foreign investors would not come to Mindanao. That's what we want. They should not invade our place. Mindanao is ours. How come other non-Muslim people reign here? We are the ones who are hungry; we are on the run; we have no livelihood," Anzar said. "Bin Laden, Khalifa and other foreign Muslim terrorists share that so they help us turn away the invaders, including the government. We don't need the Philippine government here. We want our own Muslim government." Bin Laden and Khalifa generously provided the funds for the terrorist acts of the Abu Sayyaf and they had no complaints, he said. "Whether the money was used for bombings, kidnappings, Bin Laden and Khalifa did not complain, for as long as the objective-to fight and prevail upon the government-was reached," he said. Support for Robot He said the original Abu Sayyaf members supported Commander Robot's kidnapping of 31 mostly foreign nationals because it sent a strong message to the Philippine government and the foreign governments "not to mess with Muslim people in Mindanao." From the multimillion-peso ransom raised by the Robot gang, "Bin Laden and Khalifa do not get a single centavo. They even give more," Anzar said. This act of generosity, Anzar said, has lured more Muslims to join the Abu Sayyaf. "There's plenty of money. For instance, we have a weeklong operation, we leave money to our families more than enough to spend for the month," he said. "For example, our families spend about P1,000 a week, we would be given five times that amount." Anzar said this allowed the Abu Sayyaf to sustain their operations. The more they engaged in terrorism, the more financial support poured in from Bin Laden and Khalifa. Anzar said even before Angeles was nabbed by the government (although the Abu Sayyaf believed he surrendered and turned against his comrades), Bin Laden and Khalifa started organizing another group-that of Commander Robot. "So there would be no setback in terrorist operations," he said. The financial support from Bin Laden continued even after Khalifa was arrested in Sta. Rita, California, on Dec. 26, 1994 and was detained by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation for using fake travel papers, he said. He said Angeles was killed in January 1999, a month after Janjalani was killed by government troops on Dec. 18, 1998. "Janjalani's relatives believed it was Angeles who had Janjalani killed so he was also killed by the relatives," he said. "The (original) group broke up. We had contacts with Commander Robot. We are still armed up to now. But we'd rather do our own thing. Preferably lie low, now that the government is going after the original members," he said. Anzar said he surfaced to tell his story to the INQUIRER that the Abu Sayyaf are proud to be called terrorists. (Tomorrow, Khalifa's own terrorist network. And who's the Cabinet official listed as a board member of the IIRO foundation?) |
If you want a historical parallel to Osama bin Laden and this whole terror thing, I think the Nazis are the best example, to wit:
They took a desperate people and gave them a promise of world domination and a 'super race';
They had zealots whose belief in their (albeit earthly leader) superseded any fear they had of death.
Having said that, I think that we're going to dispatch this clown bin Laden (who I think was too quickly assigned blame for this) and our leaders are going to come up with evidence linking our friend Saddam Hussein to all of this.
Time to cancel that Iraqi timeshare, my friends.
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
Ali has been charged in U.S. District Court in New York with lying to a grand jury for saying he never met or spoke to bin Laden. He also has been charged with criminal contempt for refusing to complete his testimony. Originally, federal officials were interested in Ali for knowledge he might have about the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Ali has not been accused of wrongdoing in the bombings. His name resurfaced when FBI agents learned that he had received a pilot's license at Airman Flight School in Norman in 1993 or 1994. The aviation school has come under scrutiny in connection with two suicide hijackers who visited the school before the Sept. 11 jet attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. This is ridiculous," Nubani said Wednesday. You'd do better to spend your time somewhere else. You guys are just stirring up craziness for Arabic communities. I'm an (Arab) attorney. I'd be terrified to get a pilot's license after this." Nubani said he could not comment on Ali's arrest or whether he had earned a pilot's license at Airman Flight School. Ali remains in police custody. Federal court documents and news reports have revealed that Ali received a pilot's license at the Norman school. Before his arrest, Ali had lived in Florida and worked as a taxi driver. Airman Flight School has no record of Ali graduating from the school, said Admissions Director Brenda Keene. She said the school's records go back to 1994, the year after Ali reportedly earned his license there. Keene said federal agents showed up at Airman Flight School about two years ago seeking information about a Middle Eastern man for unspecified reasons. She said she could not remember the man's name but remembered that he was employed possibly as a taxi driver. FBI officials visited the aviation school at least twice before the terrorist attacks, seeking information about international students and their interest in the school's training programs. Just two weeks before the New York and Pentagon tragedies occurred, Keene said federal agents showed up with questions about a French- Algerian man who is now in custody who had trained as a pilot. Keene said agents asked Airman employees to identify a photo of Zacarias Moussaoui. |
Moussaoui had inquired about training at the school as early as September 2000, school officials said. He was detained Aug. 17 on immigration charges in Minnesota after he aroused suspicions by seeking to buy time on a flight simulator for jetliners, federal officials said. Since the attacks, he has been flown to New York, where a federal grand jury has been convened. Gary Johnson, an FBI spokesman in Oklahoma City, refused comment. Moussaoui took 57 hours of flying lessons at Airman Flight School between February and May yet was not allowed to fly solo and didn't get his pilot's license. Most students are allowed to fly alone after 12 to 20 hours of training, Keene said. Moussaoui arrived at the school in late February and signed up for flight lessons, paying half of the $5,000 cost in cash, which Keene said was not unusual. France's internal security service told The Associated Press they had placed Moussaoui on a 1999 list of those possibly affiliated with the militant group Islamic Jihad. Suicide hijacker Mohamed Atta reportedly called Airman Flight School in April 2000. He and a second suicide hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehhi, toured the school in July 2000 but did not enroll. Atta reportedly was aboard a jumbo jet that crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center, while Al-Shehhi was aboard a jet that rammed the south tower. TIMELINE Years before the attacks in New York and Washington, FBI agents investigated at least two Middle Eastern pilots at an Oklahoma flight school. 1993 or 1994: Ihab Mohamed Ali is trained to fly airplanes while attending Airman Flight School in Norman. May 1999: An FBI agent from the New York office's "terrorist division" calls Oklahoma repeatedly, seeking Ali's flight school records. "They never said what he had done," said Brenda Whitehead, the school's admissions director. "He said, I wouldn't be hassling you unless it was serious.' " September 2000: In an indictment, prosecutors write that they wanted to ask Ali about his pilot training, his alleged contact with Osama bin Laden and other matters. The indictment accuses Ali of criminal contempt for refusing to answer questions before New York grand juries probing terrorism. Late August: The FBI visits the Norman flight school to inquire about Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now in custody in New York. The FBI had a picture of Moussaoui and asked if people at the school could identify him. Moussaoui was held Aug. 17 in Minnesota on immigration concerns after he aroused suspicions by seeking to buy time on a flight simulator for jetliners in Minnesota, law enforcement officials said. Sources: Federal Aviation Administration records, the Orlando Sentinel, Tulsa World archives and the Associated Press. |
Best regards, oldtimer. A treat to see your handle appear.
DENVER
Jones said in his book, "Others Unknown," that the meeting between Nichols and Ramzi Yousef allegedly occurred sometime in the early 1990s on the island of Mindanao in the Philippines, a "hotbed of fundamentalist Muslim activity." Present were Nichols - who referred to himself as "The Farmer" - Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad and Wali Khan Amin Shah, Jones said in the 331-page book that will be in bookstores Nov. 9. The subject of the meeting, Jones claims, was terrorism: bombing activities; providing firearms and ammunition; and training in the making and handling of bombs. |
The material mirrors arguments Jones made in a writ of mandamus filed on McVeigh's behalf before the start of McVeigh's trial. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch did not allow Jones to present the material at trial. "It is false, it is defamatory and he (Jones) knows it," Tigar told the Denver Post. "From the beginning, one of his tactics has been to create a smoke screen by seeking to divert attention from the real serious issues that had to be decided in this case." Jones said his claims about the Nichols-Iraqi intelligence meeting are based on alleged interviews Filipino police had with Edwin Angeles, described as a Yousef associate, who was arrested in the Philippines and purportedly turned informant against Iraq. In videotaped and written interviews, Angeles said he met "The Farmer" at the meeting where "The Farmer" discussed terrorism with Yousef, Murad and Shah. Jones said Angeles also showed a sketch of "The Farmer," who "was a dead ringer for ... Nichols." After their meeting with Nichols, Murad, Shah and Yousef were charged in the plot to blow up the 12 U.S. jetliners, Jones said. They were convicted in September 1996 and are serving time in U.S. prisons, the Enid, Okla., lawyer said. Jones said that one of the convicted plotters, Shah, was acquainted with Nichols' wife, Marife Torres Nichols, a Filipino by birth. Nichols' marriage to Marife was little more than a cover for Nichols as he made his way six times to the Philippines to perfect bomb-making techniques he originally tried to develop on the Nichols farm in Decker, Mich., Jones alleged. Jones accused Nichols of setting up McVeigh, using methods that Yousef had used over the years, including the attempt to hide the real perpetrators of the World Trade Center bombing. Jones said he wondered whether the Oklahoma City bombing may have been a "very well executed conspiracy" designed to protect and shelter everyone involved - except McVeigh. The April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building left 168 people dead. Nichols was sentenced to life in prison for his role in the bombing. McVeigh was sentenced to death. |
The defense petition contains several startling claims of evidence linking others to the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The blast killed 168 people. McVeigh, the defense says, was a patsy used by neo-Nazis and international terrorists.
The government has consistently said that McVeigh and co-defendant Terry Nichols carried out the attack. Neither Jones nor prosecutors would comment on Tuesday's filing. U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch Friday renewed his longstanding gag order on lawyers in the case. Jones' petition Tuesday was the second time in 10 days that he asked for a delay in the trial. Matsch last week rejected a defense motion to cancel, delay or move the trial because of the publicity and ordered jury selection to proceed Monday. The defense request called for eleventh-hour action by an appeals court that would overrule a judge in a volatile case awaiting trial. Matsch in January limited defense access to some U.S. intelligence records. The defense, however, says it has made a strong case for foreign involvement, particularly by a cadre of Oklahoma-based neo-Nazis and extremists, and is entitled to investigate further. |
The defense says that:
Also at the meeting, the defense says, were Ramzi Yousef, accused mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and three other terrorists. The meeting was to discuss bombings, Angeles told defense investigators on videotape and in a signed statement. The Rocky Mountain News disclosed the claim of a Nichols link to Yousef in January. * Saudi Arabian intelligence officials told the U.S. government on the day of the bombing that Iraqi-hired terrorists were responsible.
Mahon told the Rocky Mountain News he had nothing to do with the bombing. But he confirmed that he got money he believes came from Iraq. He said he received money orders for $ 100 a month starting in 1991 shortly after sending Iraqi representatives copies of videotapes of anti-Gulf War demonstrations he had sponsored in Tulsa and Chicago. The money orders were mailed from the same Washington ZIP code of the Iraqi interests section and stopped a month after the bombing. ''A hundred dollars a month is all, for (expletive) sake,'' Mahon said. ''That's not much. I can barely afford to buy a pizza, let alone a bomb.'' In Tuesday's petition, the defense argued that Nichols and neo-Nazis operating from an eastern Oklahoma white supremacist compound called Elohim City carried out the attack. A German national, Andreas Strassmeir, was living there at the time of the bombing. Federal informant Carol Howe said he talked about the need to blow up federal installations. Strassmeir, who was in the U.S. illegally at the time, returned to Germany in January 1996 without being interviewed by the FBI. Howe told the FBI two days after the bombing that she had infiltrated Elohim City and warned her contact that the group was discussing the need to take action against the federal government. Jones said he will tell a jury that: ''Timothy McVeigh's defense is that 1) he did not rent the Ryder truck, 2) he did not assemble a bomb . . . 3) he did not drive the Ryder truck to Oklahoma City and 4), he did not detonate the bomb.'' |
Regardless, I'll be interested in anything you have along those lines.
In other words, we just need to move along. That's a nice concept to promote Justice for All. Except maybe just a few who hang together. Game the system, so to say.
I know, Pragmatism/Realism is Real Life.
But some of us don't believe in that. Too many windmills that need to be attacked, right?
Sadam Hussein has been linked to helping Bin Laden and AlQaeda do the WTC attacks on 9/11/2001. Hijacker Pilot Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi intelligence in Prague Checkozovakia in 2000.
The Iraqi, Hussaini, referred to in this article as allegedly being with McVeigh, has been reported to have once served in the Hussein's elite Iraqi Republican guard during the Gulf War.
And it has been said by David Schippers, the legal cousel for the House Managers during impeachment on WRRK radio (Pittsbugh-9/13/2001), that the FBI should look at the Iraqi again since he was a baggage handler at Boston's Logan airport, where some of the hijacked planes in the WTC attacks originated on 9/11/2001.
So it is plausible that Sadam Hussein helped Bin Laden not only do the WTC attacks, but even possibly the OKC bombing since the article described the OKC bombing as a "Bin Laden operation."
I was thinking the same about you.
It's been more than four years (maybe 5) since I started lurking the Whitewater forum, back in the bad old days when you didn't register on FR. I first started researching Whitewater on the web in late 1992 or early '93...
I was curious what we'd be discussing after x42's departure. I guess I should have been more careful what I wished for... Wallaby is one who's been registered here a week longer than me.
Hell, I think Wallaby registered before Jim Robinson...
Nah. He's user #1. I'm only #32. I must have registered on the first day he asked us to register in order to post. I hadn't been posting for long before that, though. I hopped into the forum a good bit after Bev Specht, Rodger Schultz, the Scotsman, A Whitewater Researcher. They're the true oldtimers.
Why were a group of Iraqis, that obviously hate America and love saddam hussein, brought into this country by the bloody clinton administration?
I've heard they were deserters from the iraqi red guard (often erroneously, in my opinion, called the Republican Guard). If they are indeed deserters or refugees from iraq, they sure act funny in that they appear to love saddam.
They should all be thrown in jail immediately and tried as criminals and traitors.
They can share jail cells with the bloody clintons and their trolls.
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