The FBI's top counterterrorism official at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks told a jury on Tuesday that he did not know a bureau agent had filed a report three weeks earlier detailing his suspicions that Zacarias Moussaoui was involved in some imminent airline hijacking plot.
The official, Michael Rolince, who was the chief of the FBI's international terrorism section until his retirement, testified that he had little knowledge of Moussaoui before the attacks. Rolince said he was unaware that the agent, Harry Samit, who was working in Minneapolis, had filed a lengthy report asking for a complete investigation of Moussaoui, whom he described as a radical Islamic fundamentalist who hated the US and was learning to fly jetliners.
When Moussaoui's chief court-appointed lawyer, Edward MacMahon Jr, asked Rolince if he knew that when Moussaoui was arrested he was under suspicion of planning a hijacking, he replied: "No." Then, after a moment he asked sharply, "Can I ask what document that's coming from?"
MacMahon offered a quick reply: "That's Mr Samit's communication to your office," he said. "Aug. 18, 2001."
Rolince said that Samit's "suppositions, hunches and suspicions were one thing and what we knew" was a different matter.
Despite his efforts to recover, Rolince became the second witness for the prosecution in two consecutive days at the sentencing trial for Moussaoui whose testimony appeared to provide clear benefits to the defense.
Samit, who was similarly cross-examined by MacMahon on Monday, testified, albeit reluctantly, that he had told investigators after the attacks that he believed that his superiors at the bureau in Washington were guilty of "criminal negligence" and ignored his increasingly dire requests to obtain a search warrant in order to protect their careers. He said that they took a gamble that Moussaoui was not going to have any valuable information and they lost a wager that proved to be a national tragedy.
The government has argued that Moussaoui, the only person to go to trial in the US in connection with the deaths of Sept. 11, should be executed because when he was arrested three weeks earlier on immigration charges he lied to investigators about his knowledge of plans by al-Qaeda to fly planes into buildings. Because Moussaoui has already pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks, the sole question before the jury is whether he should be executed or spend the remainder of his life in prison.
Both Samit and Rolince were called as witnesses by the government to press the argument that had Moussaoui told Samit and other investigators what he knew, the FBI could have taken steps to foil the plot.
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS