Thu, Sep 20, 2001 page6

• Asia: One suspect's trial shows difficulty of tracking al-Qaeda

  • AP
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  "God is great!" the bearded prisoner shouted defiantly from behind the bars of his cage in a military courtroom, fingers jammed into his ears to block the sound of attorneys' arguments as he recited his afternoon prayers.

  Raed Hijazi, a 32-year-old Jordanian-American, stands accused of helping plan what was supposed to have been a spectacular millennium terror strike aimed at Western tourists in the Holy Land, with a target list that included a luxury Amman hotel and the traditional site of Jesus' baptism along the banks of the River Jordan.

  At the time of the foiled plot, authorities confidently linked it to Osama bin Laden, now identified by the US as the prime suspect in last week's fiery airborne attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the world's worst-ever terrorist act.

  But Hijazi's legal odyssey, now in its second year, is a prime example of just how drawn-out and difficult efforts can be to establish ties between terror suspects and bin Laden -- and ultimately make them stick in court.

  In Jordan, Hijazi's case has been full of twists and turns.

  The San Jose, California-born man -- who studied business in the late 1980s at California State University, Sacramento -- drop-ped out of sight after being implicated by Jordanian authorities in a plot to stage a series of attacks in conjunction with 2000's New Year celebrations.

  Tried in absentia, Hijazi was convicted and sentenced to death last September by a special tribunal -- a panel of two military judges and one civilian one -- that handles security-related cases.

  Last October, he was arrested in Damascus, Syria, and extradited to Jordan. Under Jordanian law, the fact that he had originally been convicted in absentia automatically entitled him to a new trial.

  So now Hijazi is back before the same tribunal, in a drab and spartan courtroom with a black-barred cage for the accused along one wall, charged with nine counts including possessing arms and explosives, and conspiring to carry out terror attacks.

  Among the other charges is affiliation with an illegal organization, whose name was not brought up in court. Earlier on, military prosecutors identified it as al-Qaeda, or the Base, which is bin Laden's network.

  Now, though, even the prosecution is quietly acknowledging it may have trouble getting a conviction on the latter charge -- especially since none of Hijazi's 27 co-defendants was found guilty of links to bin Laden in the original trial.

  "We are not taking Mr. bin Laden to court here," the chief judge, Colonel Tayel Raqqad, said before Monday's court session. "We are trying an individual who is accused of acts that would adversely affect Jordan's security."

  Hijazi's resume, as detailed by the prosecution, appears to have some chilling similarities to those of the suicide pilots and their hijacker accomplices who died in last week's US attacks.

  The prosecution asserts Hijazi was recruited to a Jordanian terror cell in 1995, and began stockpiling arms and explosives in Syria. A year later, authorities say, he traveled to bin Laden's guerrilla camps in Afghanistan for training in bombmaking.

  In 1997, he returned to the US and worked as a cabbie in Boston, raising money for his terror cell, prosecutors said. In 1999, they say he went again to Afghanistan, and was preparing to return to Jordan when his cell was broken by the authorities.

  Hijazi, who has entered a not guilty plea, told the court back in July he had no links with bin Laden and had plotted no terror attacks, as that would be against the teaching of Islam. He acknowledged going to Pakistan in the early 1990s, but said it had been to take part in relief operations for Afghan refugees.

  On Monday, the court also heard testimony about Hijazi's claim that he had been tortured by a Jordanian military interrogator, Colonel Mahmoud Obeidat, who told him that a confession would "please the Americans."
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