Freed from a judge's gag order, FBI officials and Las Vegas police confirmed they learned in the autumn of 2002 about two videotapes suggesting terrorists had cased the city's casinos -- but decided it wasn't necessary to alert the public.
The officials on Tuesday also strongly disputed that they didn't take the evidence seriously, as suggested in Justice Department documents and by a federal prosecutor in Detroit who alerted them to the evidence and spoke publicly of his concerns this week.
The tapes were shown to casinos in the autumn of 2002, officials said, but they added there were differing recollections about whether some local officials declined a later opportunity to learn more about the surveillance from an FBI agent from Detroit who had worked on the case.
"We took the tapes seriously," Special Agent David Nanz in Las Vegas said. "When we get a tape like that ... further investigation is required to determine its relevance. And that's what we did."
Nanz said, however, that his office agreed with colleagues in Detroit that both tapes amounted to terrorist surveillance. "We don't dispute those were surveillance tapes," he said.
In documents and interviews reported on by AP on Monday, authorities in Detroit alleged as early as September 2002 that Las Vegas authorities didn't want to issue a public warning because of concerns it might hurt tourism or affect the casinos' legal liability.
Las Vegas authorities denied on Tuesday that those factors affected their decision.
Nanz said one of the two tapes, the Spanish al-Qaeda footage, was still classified at the time and Las Vegas authorities weren't immediately told that a witness named Youseff Hmimssa would corroborate the threat on the Detroit tape by saying members of a terror cell in Detroit had vowed to destroy the tourist city.
"The FBI in Las Vegas was not made aware in advance that Hmimssa's testimony would implicate security issues with Las Vegas,'' he said.
After several Las Vegas authorities said on Monday that they never knew about the tapes, Clark County Undersheriff Douglas Gillespie confirmed two of his officers had indeed seen the footage and that authorities also offered the casinos to see the footage.
"At no time did the information gleaned from these videos change the threat level in Las Vegas," Gillespie said, adding that he believed his department handled the information correctly.
Nanz and Gillespie spoke on Tuesday night after the Justice Department sought permission from a judge in Detroit to talk about some evidence that emerged in the AP story even though there is a gag order in the Detroit case.
Both men sought to resolve disputes among Las Vegas authorities, such as Mayor Oscar Goodman, who claimed they never knew about the tape. Their explanations, however, still conflicted with some documents written at the time.
One of the tapes, found in Spain in 2002, shows al-Qaeda's European operatives surveying Las Vegas casinos in 1997, engaging in casual conversation that included an apparent reference to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
The other tape found in a Detroit terror cell's apartment had eerily similar footage of the MGM Grand, the Excalibur and New York, New York casinos -- three hotels within a short distance of each other on the Las Vegas strip with a combined total of 11,000 rooms.
One Justice Department document obtained by the AP quotes a federal prosecutor in Las Vegas as saying the city's mayor was concerned about the "deleterious effect on the Las Vegas tourism industry" if the evidence became public.
Another memo states the casinos didn't want to see the footage for fear it would make them more likely to be held liable in civil court if an attack occurred.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS