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 US YouTuber who caused outrage for filming himself kissing a statue commemorating Korean wartime sex slaves has been sentenced to six months in prison, a court in Seoul said yesterday. Johnny Somali, 25, gained notoriety several years ago for recording himself doing a series of provocative stunts in South Korea and Japan, and streaming them on platforms such as YouTube and Twitch. South Korean authorities indicted Somali — whose real name is Ramsey Khalid Ismael — in 2024 on public order violations and obstruction of business, and banned him from leaving the country. “The court has sentenced him to six months in
Former Lima mayor Rafael Lopez Aliaga, a Peruvian presidential hopeful, gathered hundreds of supporters in Lima on Tuesday and gave authorities 24 hours to annul the first round of the country’s election over allegations of fraud. Lopez Aliaga is locked in a tight three-way race with two other candidates for second place in Sunday’s vote. The election runner-up wins a ticket to June’s presidential run-off against front-runner Keiko Fujimori. “I am giving them 24 hours to declare this electoral fraud null and void,” said Lopez Aliaga, surrounded by a crowd of several hundred supporters. “If it is not declared null and void tomorrow,
PAPAL RETORT: Pope Leo told reporters that he has ‘no fear, neither of the Trump administration nor speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel’ US President Donald Trump has feuded with Pope Leo XIV over the Iran conflict — setting off an unholy row that could have serious political implications for the Republican leader back in the US. Trump has drawn barbs even from some allies over the attacks on the US-born pontiff, who has criticized the Trump administration over its immigration crackdown, the intervention in Venezuela and the Iran war. The president risks alienating the religious right in November’s crucial US midterm elections. So far the unprecedented clash between the leader of the most powerful military on Earth and the head of the world’s 1.4 billion
A 16-year-old boy has been charged with murder and aggravated sexual abuse in Florida in the death of his 18-year-old stepsister on a Carnival Cruise ship, the US Department of Justice said on Monday. Timothy Hudson was initially charged in February and subsequently indicted on March 10, but the breadth of the case was not known until a seal was lifted on Friday last week, weeks after US District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami said that he would be prosecuted as an adult at the request of the government. Anna Kepner had been traveling on the Carnival Horizon ship in November last
RSS