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.
A ship that appears to be taking on the identity of a scrapped gas carrier exited the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, showing how strategies to get through the waterway are evolving as the Middle East war progresses. The vessel identifying as liquefied natural gas (LNG) carrier Jamal left the Strait on Friday morning, ship-tracking data show. However, the same tanker was also recorded as having beached at an Indian demolition yard in October last year, where it is being broken up, according to market participants and port agent’s reports. The ship claiming to be Jamal is likely a zombie vessel that
Japan is to downgrade its description of ties with China from “one of its most important” in an annual diplomatic report, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters, as relations with Beijing worsen. This year’s Diplomatic Bluebook, which Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s government is expected to approve next month, would instead describe China as an important neighbor and the relationship as “strategic” and “mutually beneficial.” The draft cites a series of confrontations with Beijing over the past year, including export controls on rare earths, radar lock-ons targeting Japanese military aircraft and increased pressure around Taiwan. The shift in tone underscores a deterioration
LAW CONSTRAINTS: The US has been pressing allies to send warships to open the Strait, but Tokyo’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution Japan could consider deploying its military for minesweeping in the Strait of Hormuz if a ceasefire is reached in the war on Iran, Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs Toshimitsu Motegi said yesterday. “If there were to be a complete ceasefire, hypothetically speaking, then things like minesweeping could come up,” Motegi said. “This is purely hypothetical, but if a ceasefire were established and naval mines were creating an obstacle, then I think that would be something to consider.” Japan’s military actions are limited under its postwar pacifist constitution, but 2015 security legislation allows Tokyo to use its Self-Defense Forces overseas if an attack,
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) yesterday faced a regional election battle in Rhineland-Palatinate, now held by the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD). Merz’s CDU has enjoyed a narrow poll lead over the SPD — their coalition partners at the national level — who have ruled the mid-sized state for 35 years. Polling third is the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which spells a greater threat to the two centrist parties in several state elections in September in the country’s ex-communist east. The picturesque state of Rhineland-Palatinate, bordering France, Belgium and Luxembourg and with a population of about 4 million,
RSS