1 May 2001
Source: Digital file from the Court Reporters Office, Southern District of
New York; (212) 805-0300.
This is the transcript of Day 37 of the trial, May 1, 2001.
See other transcripts: usa-v-ubl-dt.htm
5212
1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
2 ------------------------------x
3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
4 v. S(7) 98 Cr. 1023
5 USAMA BIN LADEN, et al.,
6 Defendants.
7 ------------------------------x
8
New York, N.Y.
9 May 1, 2001
9:45 a.m.
10
11
12 Before:
13 HON. LEONARD B. SAND,
14 District Judge
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5213
1 APPEARANCES
2 MARY JO WHITE
United States Attorney for the
3 Southern District of New York
BY: PATRICK FITZGERALD
4 KENNETH KARAS
PAUL BUTLER
5 MICHAEL GARCIA
Assistant United States Attorneys
6
7 SAM A. SCHMIDT
JOSHUA DRATEL
8 KRISTIAN K. LARSEN
MARSHALL MINTZ
9 Attorneys for defendant Wadih El Hage
10 ANTHONY L. RICCO
EDWARD D. WILFORD
11 CARL J. HERMAN
SANDRA A. BABCOCK
12 Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Sadeek Odeh
13 FREDRICK H. COHN
DAVID P. BAUGH
14 Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali
15 DAVID STERN
DAVID RUHNKE
16 Attorneys for defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohamed
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5214
1 (In open court)
2 THE COURT: Certain consistency in punctuality.
3 Mr. Schmidt is not here nor is Mr. Dratel. You know where
4 they are?
5 MS. BESOBRASOW: They should be here any moment, your
6 Honor.
7 THE COURT: Are there any matters that require the
8 Court's attention?
9 MR. FITZGERALD: I believe not, your Honor. I could
10 tell your Honor all that's left of the government's rebuttal
11 case, we're just going to offer corrected stipulations, a
12 stipulation chart, and to read one stipulation between the
13 government and defense counsel for Odeh. That should take
14 literally two minutes and we'll be ready to do the summations.
15 MR. RICCO: Yes.
16 THE COURT: Anybody have a different view?
17 Very well. Then as soon as Mr. Schmidt arrives,
18 we'll bring in the jury.
19 MR. FITZGERALD: Thank you.
20 (Recess)
21 THE COURT: Let's bring in the jury.
22 MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, a couple of -- one scope of
23 items.
24 THE COURT: This was called for 9:45.
25 MR. DRATEL: I know, your Honor. I'm sorry.
5215
1 THE COURT: Yes.
2 MR. DRATEL: Mr. El Hage's Grand Jury testimony?
3 THE COURT: Yes.
4 MR. DRATEL: I guess it's the first one in September
5 '97.
6 THE COURT: Yes.
7 MR. DRATEL: Went in virtually in toto and at the
8 time we had moved to strike certain parts that were
9 prejudicial and on 403 grounds, and at the time certain -- a
10 couple of things stayed in, one in particular because it was
11 in the indictment as a part of a perjury charge which has
12 since been dismissed, which was the old Count 290, on the
13 identification of a person and it had to do with the imam in
14 Tucson and the murder of the imam in Tucson. Now there is
15 nothing in the indictment, there are no pending charges that
16 relate to that, and we would ask that that be stricken.
17 THE COURT: You are asking -- this is an overt act?
18 MR. DRATEL: Not an overt act.
19 THE COURT: There is a charge?
20 MR. DRATEL: It was part of a charge, a perjury
21 charge.
22 THE COURT: Which count is this?
23 MR. DRATEL: It's old Count 290. It has been
24 dismissed.
25 THE COURT: And the count has been dismissed. So you
5216
1 want dismissed from the Grand Jury testimony the questioning
2 that related to something which became the subject of
3 something that has been since dismissed?
4 MR. DRATEL: Yes. And that it be stricken also from
5 the, I guess the introductory part of the perjury part of the
6 indictment.
7 MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, if this is going to take
8 great length, I can tell you it's not coming up in the
9 summation at all so we can deal with it at the end of the day.
10 But we would oppose that because Mr. El Hage has put much
11 testimony in even as late as yesterday about goats regarding
12 counts not charged in the indictment, lies not charged, to
13 show the context of the Grand Jury appearance and I think --
14 THE COURT: We'll take it up at 4:30.
15 MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, there's one other, one
16 question and answer really in the Grand Jury --
17 THE COURT: It is also going to be -- say what the
18 subject matter is. We do intend to schedule things and to
19 have some timing.
20 MR. DRATEL: Yes, your Honor. I'm sorry.
21 THE COURT: Tell me what the matter is.
22 MR. DRATEL: There was questioning about a visa in
23 the first Grand Jury appearance, there was a question about a
24 visa for Ethiopia for Mr. El Hage, questioning about an
25 assassination attempt on the Egyptian president. There's been
5217
1 no other proof of that at all.
2 THE COURT: Same issue?
3 MR. DRATEL: Yes.
4 THE COURT: Same issue.
5 MR. DRATEL: Not same issue as far as the perjury
6 counts. This was never a perjury count. It was in there but
7 there has been no other proof. So right now it's prejudicial
8 without any other proof.
9 MR. FITZGERALD: We can take it up at 4:30, Judge.
10 It's not part of the government's summation.
11 THE COURT: Take it up at 4:30.
12 MR. DRATEL: Thank you, your Honor.
13 THE COURT: Bring in the jury.
14 MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, a clothing issue for Mr. El
15 Hage.
16 THE COURT: I sent that memo to the warden and as I
17 sent a previous letter and the warden advises that there is no
18 health risk involved in the concern raised by Mr. El Hage and
19 that with respect to tooth brushes, he will get the new
20 toothbrush when the existing supply is exhausted. And I know
21 of no reason and have no inclination to interfere with these
22 matters of the operation of the MCC.
23 MR. DRATEL: Your Honor, I'm also concerned about the
24 immediate clothing issue, that he was not given his other
25 shirt today and now he's --
5218
1 THE COURT: I understand. I have sent that to the
2 warden. What would you like me to do?
3 MR. DRATEL: I don't know, your Honor.
4 THE COURT: Neither do I. Please be seated.
5 Thank you.
6 (Jury present)
7 THE COURT: Good morning. Mr. Fitzgerald.
8 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, Judge, good morning. The
9 government formally offers but does not read at this time
10 corrected pages to the Stipulation 1, Government Exhibit 162R,
11 163R, and a corrected stipulation 154R, and we also offer but
12 do not read at this time Government Exhibit 7, which is a
13 chart of all the stipulations offered by the government in
14 this case.
15 THE COURT: Received.
16 (Government Exhibits 7, 154R, 162R and 163R received
17 in evidence)
18 MR. FITZGERALD: And we also offer at this time
19 Government Exhibit 193, which is a stipulation between the
20 government and Odeh and his counsel, and I would like to read
21 that.
22 THE COURT: Yes.
23 MR. FITZGERALD: It is hereby stipulated and agreed
24 by and between the United States of America and defendant
25 Mohamed Sadeek Odeh, by and with the consent of his
5219
1 undersigned attorneys, as follows:
2 If recalled to testify as a witness, Kelly Mount
3 would testify that on or about March 17, 1999, she vacuumed
4 Government Exhibit 529, the Nike bag, and each of its contents
5 other than those items about which she testified previously,
6 namely, Government Exhibits 535A, through 535E and 535G
7 through 535I, obtaining a single filter sample. She then
8 analyzed that sample, which analysis proved negative for the
9 presence of explosives residue in that sample.
10 It is further stipulated and agreed that this
11 stipulation may be received in evidence as a government
12 exhibit at trial.
13 THE COURT: Received.
14 (Government Exhibit 193 received in evidence)
15 MR. FITZGERALD: With that your Honor, the government
16 rests its rebuttal case.
17 THE COURT: Government rests. So the record is
18 complete, ladies and gentlemen. All of the evidence is now
19 before you and we proceed to the closing arguments. One of my
20 functions with respect to closing arguments is I am the
21 timekeeper, and we'll proceed now with the government's
22 closing argument.
23 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, counsel, ladies and
24 gentlemen, good morning.
25 You may recall that my partner, Mr. Butler, began his
5220
1 opening statement by setting the scene for you in the
2 midmorning hours of August 7, 1998, just minutes before two
3 bombs ripped through our embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar
4 es Salaam, Tanzania. I would like to begin my closing
5 statements by showing you what the scene was like in the
6 immediate aftermath of those bombings to remind all of us
7 about why we are here.
8 (Video played)
9 MR. KARAS: Ladies and gentlemen, those portions of
10 those videos serve as a painful symbol, painful reminder of
11 why it is that we have spent the last two and a half months
12 together, spending the last two and a half months to review
13 evidence that was collected from all over the world.
14 And the reason that we have done this is because we
15 have been involved in a search for justice, a search to
16 determine who it is that committed these acts, these
17 unspeakable acts that ended the lives and the hopes and the
18 dreams of hundreds of people, these vicious acts that
19 shattered three friendly nations, these evil acts defined no
20 justification, these unjust acts that demand accountability.
21 Now this search for justice began by Mr. Butler
22 committing to you that the government would establish beyond a
23 reasonable doubt that the defendant Mohamed Odeh and the
24 defendant Mohamed Al-'Owhali participated in the bombing of
25 the American Embassy in Nairobi on August 7th and that Khalfan
5221
1 Khamis Mohamed participated in the bombing of the embassy in
2 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. And I submit to you, ladies and
3 gentlemen, we have honored that commitment and we have
4 established the guilt of those defendants for those crimes in
5 this case.
6 But we committed to more. We committed to showing to
7 you that there was a conspiracy behind these embassy attacks,
8 a conspiracy to murder the people of the United States simply
9 because they were American, and we committed to showing to you
10 that all four of these defendants participated in that
11 conspiracy. And I submit to you that we have honored that
12 commitment, that we have established beyond a reasonable doubt
13 the guilt of all four of those defendants in connection with
14 the conspiracy.
15 Now, ladies and gentlemen, we have now come to the
16 close of the case and all of the evidence has been put before
17 you, and I understand that hundreds of exhibits went before
18 you very quickly and without explanation. And sometimes they
19 went in by way of stipulation and they went in even more
20 quickly, and I know, because I helped read some of these
21 stipulations.
22 But now is the time, now is the time where we can
23 discuss what the evidence tells you and how it is that the
24 pieces of the puzzle come together to show to you why it is
25 that we have proved these defendants guilty beyond a
5222
1 reasonable doubt. This is our opportunity to walk through the
2 evidence and explain the context of the conspiracies and the
3 events that preceded the bombings as well as the acts that
4 were carried out in furtherance of the bombings.
5 The way I'm going to do this, ladies and gentlemen,
6 is the first thing I'm going to do is offer a brief summary of
7 what the evidence shows these defendants did, and I do that
8 because I don't want people to be concerned about the number
9 of names that you have heard, about the number of places and
10 acts and companies and countries, because at its core, the
11 case against each and every single one of these defendants is
12 relatively straightforward.
13 Once we go through the summary of what the evidence
14 shows these defendants did, we will walk together through the
15 chronology of the events, the chronology that comprises the
16 conspiracy to murder, the conspiracy to commit war against the
17 United States. And when we have gone through that chronology,
18 we will talk about the counts in the indictment. We will talk
19 about every count in the indictment.
20 Now, the indictment has 300 counts, a little over 300
21 counts, and that is not so much a reflection of the complexity
22 of this case but of the sad fact that each and every victim is
23 represented in a separate count in this indictment, a separate
24 count of murder.
25 Now, I'll tell you up front, ladies and gentlemen,
5223
1 this is going to take some time. There has been a lot of
2 evidence presented before you and I want to take the time and
3 make sure that you understand what the evidence means, and I
4 think this is going to take the balance of today and tomorrow.
5 So let's roll up our sleeves, let's go through the evidence,
6 and let's continue this search for justice.
7 Now, let's begin with the summary. What does the
8 evidence show that the defendant Wadih El Hage did in
9 connection with this conspiracy? Now, in his opening
10 statement, counsel for El Hage, on behalf of El Hage, said to
11 you that Mr. El Hage was a mediator and that he was somebody
12 who shared in the tragedy of the embassy bombings.
13 Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that the
14 evidence shows that Wadih El Hage was a facilitator, somebody
15 who performed key logistical acts on behalf of the al Qaeda
16 conspiracy and somebody who obstructed the investigation into
17 al Qaeda within a year of the bombing and within weeks after
18 the bombing.
19 What the evidence shows, ladies and gentlemen, is
20 that, like many people in al Qaeda, Wadih El Hage has a family
21 and that Wadih El Hage conducts business transactions. But
22 like other people in al Qaeda, the evidence shows that Wadih
23 El Hage led a double life, a secret criminal life on behalf of
24 al Qaeda, and that he performed logistical services for al
25 Qaeda to make sure that others in al Qaeda could carry out
5224
1 their deadly acts.
2 The evidence shows that as far back as 1992 and 1993
3 Wadih El Hage was in charge of the al Qaeda payroll in
4 Khartoum, Sudan when al Qaeda was headquartered in that
5 country. It showed that Wadih El Hage made efforts to
6 transport Stinger Missiles from Pakistan to Sudan in 1993, the
7 same year that al Qaeda was targeting the American
8 peace-keeping mission in Somalia, and the evidence shows that
9 Wadih El Hage arranged for the transport of five al Qaeda
10 people from Khartoum down to Nairobi, also during the time
11 that al Qaeda was targeting the American presence in Somalia.
12 What else does the evidence show? The evidence shows
13 that Wadih El Hage served as Usama Bin Laden's personal
14 assistant, the gatekeeper to the man that was the head of this
15 secret conspiracy. The evidence also shows that in 1994 Wadih
16 El Hage moved from Khartoum, Sudan down to Nairobi, Kenya to
17 become a leader of the East African cell of al Qaeda.
18 And the evidence shows that when he got down to
19 Nairobi, he maintained a close operational working
20 relationship with the East African cell -- and, ladies and
21 gentlemen, this is the same cell that would carry out the
22 bombings of the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam; that
23 Wadih El Hage arranged for the facilitation and delivery of
24 false travel documents of other al Qaeda members; that he
25 communicated in code and passed on messages to others in al
5225
1 Qaeda; that he maintained a close working relationship with
2 others in the East African cell, such as the defendant,
3 Mohamed Odeh.
4 And in 1997 you heard evidence that Wadih El Hage
5 went twice to visit Usama Bin Laden and his commander, Abu
6 Hafs, here in Afghanistan. And when he returned from that
7 first trip in February of 1997, Wadih El Hage brought back
8 with him a new policy, a policy to militarize, to militarize
9 the cell that in 16 or 18 months thereafter would carry out
10 the bombings in East Africa.
11 And then you heard that El Hage went back to see Bin
12 Laden in August of 1997, a year after Bin Laden had publicly
13 declared war against the United States, six months after he
14 gave the interview with CNN where he said he would send dead
15 Americans home. And when El Hage returned, he was met by
16 American officials and he testified in a Grand Jury in this
17 courthouse, when the American government was conducting an
18 investigation of al Qaeda to try to learn about what al Qaeda
19 was doing in its war against America, to try to stop al Qaeda
20 from carrying out its deadly mission.
21 And it was at that moment that Wadih El Hage was
22 faced with a choice: He could honor his oath, he could tell
23 the truth, he could help the United States against al Qaeda,
24 or he could side with al Qaeda and Bin Laden. And the
25 evidence overwhelmingly establishes that what Wadih El Hage
5226
1 did was he sided with Jihad, he sided with al Qaeda. The
2 American citizen chose Bin Laden over America.
3 And he would do it again, because the evidence shows
4 that in 1998, merely weeks after our embassies were bombed,
5 Wadih El Hage testified again in the Grand Jury and again he
6 took an oath and again he chose al Qaeda over the United
7 States. And he lied about key members of al Qaeda, and one of
8 the people that he lied about was the defendant, Mohamed Odeh,
9 which is where we turn next.
10 What does the evidence show about Mohamed Odeh? The
11 evidence shows, ladies and gentlemen, that Mohamed Odeh was a
12 sworn member of al Qaeda, that he was a sworn member of al
13 Qaeda since 1992; that he maintained his status as a sworn and
14 paid member of al Qaeda through the various fatwahs and
15 declarations of Jihad issued by Usama Bin Laden; that he
16 maintained his status as a sworn and paid member of al Qaeda
17 through August 7th, 1998. Mohamed Odeh received extensive
18 training in Afghanistan in firearms, in explosives such as
19 TNT, and he received advance explosive training at al Qaeda's
20 camps.
21 The evidence also shows, ladies and gentlemen, that
22 Mohamed Odeh trained ideologically similar groups in Somalia,
23 once again at the same time while al Qaeda was targeting the
24 American presence in Somalia.
25 The evidence also shows that Mohamed Sadeek Odeh was
5227
1 given a business, a fishing business, by the military
2 commander of al Qaeda, a man by the name of Abu Hafs, and that
3 Mohamed Odeh remained an active member of the East African
4 cell of al Qaeda, maintaining contact and working with Wadih
5 El Hage and others. And some of the others that he worked
6 with carried out the bombings and he carried them out with
7 them.
8 In particular, ladies and gentlemen, the evidence
9 shows that Mohamed Odeh attended several meetings in the
10 spring and the summer of 1998, with the very same people who
11 carried out the bombing, and what you will see and what the
12 evidence shows is that Mohamed Odeh's role was as the
13 technical advisor to those who carried out the bombing in
14 Nairobi.
15 The evidence also shows that Mohamed Odeh traveled to
16 Nairobi in the days before the bombing. He checked into a
17 hotel using a fake name, supported by a fake passport; that he
18 attended meetings where he knew that al Qaeda was expecting
19 American retaliation for something that al Qaeda was about to
20 do; and that he fled Nairobi the night before the bombing,
21 using that fake passport, on his way to Afghanistan, the
22 headquarters of al Qaeda and the home of Usama Bin Laden, and
23 that he was caught on the morning of August 7th in Pakistan.
24 Now, the evidence shows that Mohamed Al-'Owhali had a
25 very different role in this case. Mohamed Al-'Owhali was to
5228
1 carry out the attack. He was the person who was supposed to
2 execute the bombing in Nairobi, and you know from the evidence
3 that he was supposed to die in the bombing.
4 Now, what the evidence shows is that Mohamed
5 Al-'Owhali also received training at al Qaeda camps in
6 Afghanistan. He learned about explosives, he learned about
7 weapons, but he also learned about hijackings, he learned
8 about kidnappings, and he was proficient enough at this
9 training to earn an audience with Usama Bin Laden. And it was
10 during one of his meetings with Usama Bin Laden that Mohamed
11 Al-'Owhali asked for a mission, a mission that you know he got
12 and that you know he carried out, to the detriment of 213
13 people.
14 Now, Mohamed Al-'Owhali, he, too, gets a fake
15 passport and the evidence shows that he goes to Yemen in May
16 of 1998 and then he goes back to Afghanistan, where he gets
17 the details of where it is that the operation is supposed to
18 be carried out. He made a video that was supposed to take
19 credit for his martyrdom operation, a video that al Qaeda was
20 going to show to celebrate its attack against the embassy in
21 Nairobi. And then he got to Nairobi in the early days of
22 August and he met with the other people that he was going to
23 work with to carry out the bombing.
24 He did some last-minute surveillance of the embassy.
25 He reviewed some photos and some sketches of the embassy. He
5229
1 learned all about the plan in Dar es Salaam, and then he was
2 given his instructions. And what you know is he carried out
3 his instructions.
4 On the morning of the bombing, in that back parking
5 lot of the embassy, Mohamed Al-'Owhali got out of the truck,
6 he threw his flash grenades in an effort to get that truck as
7 close to the target as possible -- the American Embassy in
8 Nairobi, Kenya.
9 Only the plan called for him to die, and he ran. And
10 when he ran, and realizing he had no travel documents and that
11 he had no money, he reached out to al Qaeda. He called Yemen,
12 and Mohamed Al-'Owhali and al Qaeda worked together to rescue
13 Al-'Owhali before he was apprehended in Nairobi, Kenya.
14 What does the evidence show about Khalfan Khamis
15 Mohamed? The evidence shows that he, too, obtained the
16 requisite training in Afghanistan and that he, too, went to
17 Somalia to train others, but that in March of 1998 Khalfan
18 Khamis Mohamed was approached about doing a Jihad job, a job
19 he readily accepted, and that it was Khalfan Khamis Mohamed
20 that purchased the utility vehicle, that white Suzuki that was
21 used to transport the component of the bomb, the TNT, the gas
22 cylinders, the detonators.
23 And you learned that Khalfan Khamis Mohamed rented
24 that place, that house at 213 Ilala that functioned as the
25 bomb factory where Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and the others
5230
1 ground the TNT and put together the bomb and loaded the bomb
2 on the bomb truck so that it could be delivered to the
3 American Embassy in Dar es Salaam. And you know that Khalfan
4 Khamis Mohamed went with that bomb truck and he prayed that
5 the bomb would go off, and he was happy when it did. And
6 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed cleaned up the house in an effort to
7 erase the trail that would connect him and his cohorts in the
8 bombing and he fled to South Africa.
9 Now, ladies and gentlemen, that was just a brief
10 summary of what the evidence shows that these four defendants
11 did, what it is that they did that makes them guilty of the
12 charges that have been brought against them in this
13 indictment.
14 What I would like to do now is turn to the chronology
15 and to walk through the conspiracy from its beginning up
16 through the bombings, and you will learn, ladies and
17 gentlemen, that all of the parts connect, that the people
18 within al Qaeda worked very closely together, that they react
19 to situations and that they plan accordingly, and you will see
20 this as we go through this chronology.
21 Now, the beginning of this conspiracy is in
22 Afghanistan, and that's where we're going to begin. And we're
23 going to talk a little bit about how it is that al Qaeda was
24 set up, how it was structured, who the leaders were, and how
25 it is that al Qaeda transformed itself into an organization
5231
1 that sought more than anything else to kill Americans.
2 The conspiracy begins in the late 1980s in
3 Afghanistan, at a time when the mujahadeen are finishing their
4 fight against the Soviet Union, a fight that you know by way
5 of stipulation that the American government supported. But
6 what turned out as an effort to help Afghanis from the Soviet
7 Union transformed into something else, because you heard from
8 the third person to join this group, Jamal Al-Fadhl, the very
9 first witness who testified, and what he told you about was
10 that at the beginning there was this organization called the
11 Mektab al Khidemat, which just means the Services Office. And
12 in fact Jamal Al-Fadhl told you that he would attend and go to
13 meetings at The Services Office in Brooklyn and that's where
14 he found out about the fight in Afghanistan against the
15 Soviets.
16 And what Jamal Al-Fadhl told you was is that Bin
17 Laden and somebody by the name of Abdallah Azzam were sort of
18 in charge of this Mektab al Khidemat but that Bin Laden had a
19 different view as the hostilities were winding down against
20 the Soviets. He wanted to export Jihad, and he wanted to take
21 the group that had been collected in Afghanistan and he wanted
22 to form a group that would reach out and fulfill his dream,
23 his view of how he thought the world should work.
24 So Usama Bin Laden, who was pictured in Government
25 Exhibit 100, formed this organization with two other people --
5232
1 we can show Exhibit 105 -- among others, but the three people
2 that Jamal Al-Fadhl talked to you about who were part of this
3 were, on the left part of the screen, a man by the name of
4 Ayman al Zawahiri, and then you see Bin Laden there in the
5 middle, and on the right-hand part of the screen is Mohamed
6 Atef, known as Abu Hafs.
7 And Abu Hafs, ladies and gentlemen, he's going to
8 become the military commander of al Qaeda, the military
9 commander. And of course, as Mr. Butler mentioned in his
10 opening statements, when we're talking about military, we're
11 not talking about armies doing battle, armed opponents
12 battling one another, we are talking about terrorism, we're
13 talking about preying on civilians. And Abu Hafs is the
14 person who is going to run the military committee.
15 You are going to see later on that Abu Hafs is the
16 person who sets up Odeh with his fishing business. Abu Hafs
17 is the person who is going to meet with Wadih El Hage in
18 Kenya, and he's one of the many, many al Qaeda people that
19 Wadih El Hage is going to lie about in the Grand Jury in 1997
20 and 1998.
21 Now, Ayman al Zawahiri is the man on the left. He's
22 one of the founders of al Qaeda. You will see that he's one
23 of people that served on the committees. He's also the emir
24 or the leader of this group known as the Egyptian Islamic
25 Jihad, or EIJ. And EIJ is an organization that forms a joint
5233
1 venture with al Qaeda. You will see that Ayman al Zawahiri
2 joins in the February 1998 fatwa where Bin Laden says it is
3 the duty to kill all American civilians.
4 So Jamal Al-Fadhl told you about those three people
5 and he told you that there was another person by the name of
6 Abu Ubaidah. Now, Abu Ubaidah was the person who was also one
7 of the military commanders of al Qaeda. Abu Ubaidah is the
8 person who drowns in that ferry accident in Lake Victoria in
9 the spring of 1996 and he is one of the military commanders
10 who meets with Wadih El Hage and he's one of the military
11 commanders that Wadih El Hage is going to lie about in 1997
12 and 1998.
13 So how did somebody become a member of al Qaeda?
14 Well, you heard from two sworn members. You heard from Jamal
15 Al-Fadhl, the third man to take the oath, and he said that
16 when you take the oath, you pledge allegiance to the emir,
17 Usama Bin Laden, and you pledge allegiance to the group al
18 Qaeda.
19 And what he meant by that was that you are able, and
20 you are ready and willing and able to do whatever it is they
21 ask you to do that is Islamically correct, as they determine
22 what is Islamically correct through their scholars. And one
23 example that Jamal Al-Fadhl gave you was that he said that if
24 you are in al Qaeda and you take the bayat, you are a doctor
25 and they ask you to wash a car, you wash the car. You do what
5234
1 they ask you to do, when they ask you to do it, and you carry
2 it out.
3 And that's precisely what the witness Kherchtou told
4 you -- that he took the same oath and that he understood that
5 he had to follow the Islamically correct orders of al Qaeda
6 and of the emir, and that he would swear allegiance to Bin
7 Laden and the group.
8 Now, you learned a great deal about the structure of
9 this organization al Qaeda. The undisputed leader is Usama
10 Bin Laden and you learned that under Bin Laden there are
11 committees. The governing council is known as the Shura
12 Council, and the prominent members you heard about. You heard
13 about several, but the ones you heard about that you see over
14 and over again in this case, Abu Hafs, the military commander;
15 Ayman al Zawahirial, the person who is also head of EIJ, the
16 person who was in that picture with Bin Laden.
17 Another person that was on that committee was Abu
18 Fadhl al Makkee. Different than Jamal Al-Fadhl. Abu Fadhl al
19 Makkee is somebody you are going to hear a great deal about.
20 He is going to be on other committees and he's going to serve
21 a very interesting role that we'll talk about later on.
22 Then there was the military committee. I talked to
23 you about what al Qaeda means by military, but the two
24 prominent members of that committee were Abu Ubaidah and Abu
25 Hafs; the money and business committee, and this was run by
5235
1 this person Abu Fadhl al Makkee that I mentioned to you about,
2 and Jamal Al-Fadhl described him for you. He said that Abu
3 Fadhl al Makkee was the person who married Usama Bin Laden's
4 niece. He was the person who had his leg amputated below the
5 knee.
6 And Abu Fadhl al Makkee, ladies and gentlemen, is
7 somebody who in 1997 al Qaeda is going to believe is
8 cooperating with America, and you are going to hear how the
9 group reacts to that. We're going to go through the
10 conversations where Abu Hafs, Wadih El Hage's deputy, is on
11 the phone with other al Qaeda members and they are panicking
12 because they think that this Abu Fadhl al Makkee -- and
13 they're going to describe him, with the amputated leg and the
14 person who is with the Sheik Bin Laden's family -- is
15 cooperating with America. And in their reaction, you will see
16 precisely how this group operates, what it is that motivates
17 them, what it is they fear and what it is they want to attack,
18 and that is the United States.
19 Now, then there's the fatwah committee. The fatwah
20 committee issues these orders. These are the scholars that
21 Jamal Al-Fadhl talked about and this is what forms the basis
22 of what is Islamically correct within al Qaeda. And two of
23 the prominent members you heard about were Ayman al Zawahiri,
24 the person who is in that three-person picture, and another
25 person by the name of Abu Hajer.
5236
1 If we can display Government Exhibit 106 is Abu
2 Hajer. Abu Hajer is an important person because he is
3 somebody who is going to work for some of these companies that
4 al Qaeda is going to create in Sudan and he's going to work
5 with Wadih El Hage. Abu Hajer is somebody whose business card
6 Wadih El Hage is going to have in 1997, and Abu Hajer, as
7 we're going to go through the chronology, is going to issue
8 some fatwahs that are going to justify, in al Qaeda's eyes,
9 the activities that they are going to carry out against
10 America.
11 Finally, ladies and gentlemen, you heard about the
12 media committee, and you heard about this both from Jamal
13 Al-Fadhl and from Kherchtou. And they talked to you about
14 they publish the Jihad paper and they had this funny name for
15 the guy who ran it Abu Musab al Reuter. And they thought that
16 was funny.
17 The reason that this committee is important, ladies
18 and gentlemen, is because one of the methods that al Qaeda
19 uses in its war against America is to recruit people, and
20 propaganda is something that is very important to them. It is
21 important to recruit people, to train them, so they can carry
22 out operations, and propaganda is important because it is one
23 of the ways in which they seek to terrorize their enemies.
24 And you see no better example of that than when the
25 group claimed responsibility for the embassy bombings in
5237
1 Nairobi in Kenya, those claims of responsibility that you saw
2 were sent to London and then re-sent out to the media
3 organizations the day after the bombing. And we'll go through
4 these and explain how you know that those are al Qaeda claims.
5 Now, both Jamal Al-Fadhl and Kherchtou talked to you
6 a great deal about the methods that al Qaeda operated, and one
7 of the things that was very important to them was maintaining
8 secrecy. Security and secrecy were very important to protect
9 themselves from the Americans and from others that they
10 perceived as their enemies.
11 From the very beginning, they were protective of
12 their secrets, and throughout they were concerned about
13 learning about those who they thought were informants against
14 them. And Jamal Al-Fadhl told you that al Qaeda would seek
15 out and kill anybody they suspected of being informants
16 against the group.
17 What that tells you, ladies and gentlemen, in no
18 uncertain terms, is this is not a charity organization. This
19 is not a benevolent group. This is a group that is very
20 serious about its business and they will do anything they can
21 to maintain secrecy. And the other thing it tells you is that
22 they're going to be very careful about who they trust, who it
23 is they're going to talk about al Qaeda business around.
24 And it is from that that you know who it is that's in
25 the inner circle of al Qaeda, it is from that that you know
5238
1 that whether or not somebody observes somebody taking a bayat,
2 they knew who was in and who was not in, who they could talk
3 about business to, al Qaeda business, and who they couldn't.
4 And that is something that looms very important in this case
5 when it comes to determining who is involved in this
6 conspiracy and what it is that they did.
7 Now, another thing that al Qaeda did to protect
8 itself was it made liberal use of aliases, aliases such as,
9 for example, Bin Laden would be known as Abu Abdallah, or al
10 Qa Qa. And Government Exhibit 4, which I believe you all have
11 a copy of, is a series of pictures with people's names and
12 their aliases as testified to you by Kherchtou.
13 And you see other corroboration of this, but another
14 person who had an alias is Abu Hafs. And Abu Hafs, the
15 military commander, he went by the name Abu Khadija, he went
16 by the name Abu Fatima. And other evidence shows that Abu
17 Hafs goes by the name Mohamed Atef, and Mohamed Atef is a name
18 you're going to see in Khalid al Fawwaz's address book, one of
19 people in London. And you are going to see references to Abu
20 al Hafs in Nairobi.
21 The witness, Jamal Al-Fadhl, talked about a couple of
22 other people he knew and he only knew their aliases, but you
23 will see from other evidence who these people are. He
24 mentioned to you, for example, somebody by the name of Abu
25 Anas, and Jamal Al-Fadhl described Anas al Liby as a computer
5239
1 expert.
2 And what you see is that Kherchtou will describe for
3 you, and did describe for you, that Anas al Liby was somebody
4 he received surveillance training with and that Anas al Liby
5 was somebody who was very good with computers. And what you
6 saw was there was a search in Manchester that came in by way
7 of stipulation, one of these many stipulations, and some of
8 the documents that were found in this house, which a passport
9 found in the house shows us is this guy Anas al Liby's house.
10 The computer contains documents that talks about Jihad and
11 talks about the methods of doing Jihad, about using aliases
12 and using fake passports and the need to attack, among other
13 things, the embassies of your enemy.
14 Somebody else that Jamal Al-Fadhl talked about was
15 somebody he knew as Abu Fazhul, somebody he described as
16 Swahili and French from The Comoros, which he thought was the
17 moon. And you know from other evidence, including Kherchtou,
18 that that is Harun. Harun will carry out the bombing in
19 Nairobi. He will be the guy who rents the bomb factory. He
20 will be the guy that gets the utility vehicle. He will be the
21 guy that stays behind in Nairobi to clean up, just like
22 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed does in Dar es Salaam.
23 And Harun is Wadih El Hage's deputy. He is the one
24 who uses El Hage's phone. He uses his computer. He's one of
25 the people that El Hage will lie about in September of 1997
5240
1 and 1998.
2 Al Qaeda, as you know, was a transnational
3 organization. People from all over the world joined it and
4 people within al Qaeda traveled all over the world. And al
5 Qaeda, as Jamal al Fadhl told you, trained its members on how
6 to travel secretly so they wouldn't draw attention from
7 people. Al Qaeda trained its members to shave their beards
8 and to wear Western clothes to avoid detention by Western
9 intelligence agencies.
10 And both he and Kherchtou describe for you that the
11 group would use fake passports, and this is one of the many
12 niche businesses that you are going to see al Qaeda gets into.
13 It's their lifeblood, it's how al Qaeda is able to get their
14 people in and out of countries without being detected.
15 Kherchtou described for you two people who he said
16 helped do the passports for al Qaeda. One was somebody he
17 knew by the name of Abu Mohamed el Masry and the other one was
18 Harun. And you're going to see Kherchtou doesn't know this,
19 but later on you're going to see evidence that Harun and El
20 Hage actually did this.
21 You see that there were travel stamps in the
22 computer, and we will go through the conversations where Wadih
23 El Hage and Harun are speaking with al Qaeda members,
24 arranging for the delivery of passports for al Qaeda people.
25 DHL calls and letters which clearly establish, just as
5241
1 Kherchtou said, that Harun is involved in this. And you're
2 going to see that El Hage was with him all the way.
3 Now, both Jamal Al-Fadhl and Kherchtou describe for
4 you the al Qaeda training camp experience. They even
5 described many similar camps, again, many of the names. You
6 heard about places called Miram Shah and Khalid Ibn Walid and
7 the al Farouq Camp and the Jihad Wal Camp and the Sadeek Camp.
8 And during these camps, the group gets training in weapons,
9 they get training in mortars, they get training in explosives,
10 they get training in counter-intelligence, and some of these
11 names, some of these camps are the same places where Mohamed
12 Odeh and Mohamed Al-'Owhali are training later on.
13 Now, by 1990, the foundation for al Qaeda is in
14 place. Bin Laden, Abu Hafs, Abu Ubaidah, Ayman al Zawahiri
15 are at the top of the organization. And in August of 1990,
16 something that is very significant in al Qaeda lore happens,
17 and that is Iraq invaded Kuwait. And in response to that
18 invasion, you know this by way of stipulation, President Bush
19 dispatched the first of the American troops, with the
20 agreement of the Saudi government, to Saudi Arabia. And he
21 did that on August 7th, 1990.
22 And eight years later, ladies and gentlemen, that is
23 when al Qaeda will bomb the embassies in Nairobi and in Dar es
24 Salaam. You see, the American military presence in Saudi
25 Arabia is something that becomes the cause of al Qaeda. You
5242
1 will see this in what Al-Fadhl tells you about Bin Laden's
2 private statements to al Qaeda members and you see this and we
3 will go through this in Bin Laden's public statements.
4 More than anything else, he says that it is the duty
5 of al Qaeda and, in his view, everybody, every Muslim, to do
6 anything in their power to drive the Americans from Saudi
7 Arabia, to kill them anywhere they are. And on August 7th,
8 1998, the anniversary of the arrival of those troops, that is
9 precisely what al Qaeda did. That is precisely what they did.
10 Now, also in 1990 the evidence shows that that is
11 when Mohamed Odeh arrives in Afghanistan. Earlier in his life
12 he had been in the Philippines and he had been studying
13 architecture and engineering, something that he would use
14 later on.
15 Just like Kherchtou, Odeh arrived at the Bait al
16 Ansar Camp where he left his valuables, just like Kherchtou
17 described for you, and he went to al Farouq Camp and he took
18 training in small arms and he took training in map reading and
19 he took training in basic explosives which included TNT, the
20 same material that would be used to blowup the embassies in
21 1998.
22 Now, you know that after Odeh completes his training,
23 he stays around in Afghanistan and he works as a mechanic and
24 he's around for some of the battles in Afghanistan and that's
25 where he is in 1990. And we'll come back later on as we go
5243
1 through the chronology.
2 Now, Jamal Al-Fadhl told you that at some point in
3 1991, 1992 al Qaeda wanted to leave Afghanistan and set up
4 somewhere else. There was some concern in the group about
5 where to go. One of the places that he considered was the
6 Sudan, but there were some people within the organization that
7 were troubled by this because they didn't know if it was an
8 Islamically acceptable place to be.
9 And the person who persuaded the group that it was
10 acceptable to go there was this person Abu Hajer. And Abu
11 Hajer is the person I mentioned to you who is on the fatwah
12 committee and he will issue several fatwahs. Abu Hajer says
13 that it is okay for al Qaeda to go there because the
14 organization that runs the Sudan The National Islamic group is
15 a group al Qaeda work with.
16 So you know from what al Qaeda told you is that the
17 group in fact moved to Sudan, and when the group got to Sudan,
18 one of the things that Jamal al Fadhl himself did was he would
19 purchase farms, farms that the group would use to meet, farms
20 that the group would use for what he called refresh training
21 in some of the terrorist tactics that al Qaeda would teach its
22 members.
23 And it was after the group moved to Sudan and after
24 the American forces arrived in Saudi Arabia that Bin Laden and
25 Abu Hajer begin to speak privately to al Qaeda members about
5244
1 Bin Laden's and al Qaeda's views about their duties with
2 respect to Americans. The bottom line was that Americans had
3 to be attacked, and Bin Laden and Abu Hajer issued a fatwah to
4 the members of al Qaeda that they would have to fight the
5 United States to drive them from the Gulf.
6 Now, at some point in 1992, the defendant Odeh elects
7 to join al Qaeda and he takes the same bayat that Kherchtou
8 and Al-Fadhl did: To follow the emir's orders; to do what the
9 group asks. And what you learn is that Odeh then goes and
10 receives additional training, advanced training in explosives,
11 where he learns how to figure out what type of explosive to
12 use and how much of that explosive to use in carrying out an
13 operation.
14 And one of the people who trains him is somebody by
15 the name of Abdel Rahman. And Abdel Rahman, ladies and
16 gentlemen, is going to show up at the Hilltop Hotel in Nairobi
17 just days before the bombing in Nairobi, and he's going to
18 meet with Mohamed Odeh just days before the bomb goes off in
19 Nairobi.
20 Also in 1992, you heard from the witness Kherchtou
21 and he described for you a different type of training that he
22 received. He was ordered to get this training by Abu Hafs,
23 the military commander, and he told you that was training that
24 was offered by somebody he knew as Abu Mohamed al Amriki, and
25 we see him in Government Exhibit 4, page 5. Abu Mohamed al
5245
1 Amriki, and Amriki means the American. And you see him
2 pictured there and the fake names for Abu Mohamed al Amriki
3 listed there.
4 This person, ladies and gentlemen is Ali Mohamed.
5 Ali Mohamed, and just to give you a sense of who Ali Mohamed
6 is, he is the person whose house is searched in California in
7 1998. He is a person who has computer documents and has other
8 documents that show him in communication with Wadih El Hage
9 and other al Qaeda members, and he is one of the people who
10 lurks in the background through this whole conspiracy.
11 He provides training, he carries out operations, and
12 he maintains contact with critical members in al Qaeda and he
13 is part of the long list of al Qaeda members that Wadih El
14 Hage is going to lie about in the Grand Jury in September of
15 1997 and 1998.
16 And what Kherchtou told you about the training he was
17 offered is he was trained with a small group of people, and
18 one of the people he was trained with went by the name of Anas
19 al Liby. And he's also pictured in Government Exhibit 4-9.
20 Anas al Liby is one of the people that Kherchtou trained with,
21 and to put it into context, Anas al Liby is one of people he
22 is going to visit in Kenya in 1993 with some camera equipment.
23 He is going to be one found on Moi Avenue, about 500 meters
24 from the American Embassy, and his picture is going to be
25 found in the files of Wadih El Hage in Nairobi in 1998.
5246
1 Now, what is it that these folks were trained in?
2 Well, Kherchtou told you that they were trained how to make
3 surveillance of a target, and he described for you how they
4 would learn to target buildings, to collect information on
5 that building, for example, by taking pictures, and they
6 learned how to use small cameras and to take pictures
7 surreptitiously.
8 And they would learn how to develop these pictures
9 and to put this information into a report, a report that would
10 be marked secret, that would tell the reader when the report
11 was prepared, what the target was. The target would be given
12 a number, and then somebody else would carry out whatever it
13 was they were going to do with this.
14 One of the things that Kherchtou described for you
15 was that, in addition to learning how to target the exterior
16 buildings, the group would learn how to go into a room. And I
17 don't know if you remember, but during his testimony when he
18 described this, he looked around in this room, almost doing a
19 quick surveillance himself, and it was very instructive to
20 you, ladies and gentlemen, because it tells you something
21 about al Qaeda. It tells you that there's a part of al Qaeda
22 that remains in every single one of these people.
23 Jamal Al-Fadhl, when he testified and he was asked
24 questions, Can you tell us how al Qaeda did this? Can you
25 tell us how al Qaeda did that? Did you notice every now and
5247
1 then he would say "we." We would do it this way. We would do
2 it that way.
3 This is a group that trains its members very
4 effectively, ladies and gentlemen. One of the things that
5 Kherchtou said to you about Anas al Liby -- he was the person
6 we just saw in that picture -- Anas al Liby was somebody very
7 good with computers. He bought a computer, in fact, in
8 connection with training.
9 Remember what Jamal al Fadhl said. He heard of
10 somebody Anas who was a computer expert, and you're going to
11 see additional evidence of Anas al Liby's expertise in
12 computers.
13 (Continued on next page)
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5248
1 MR. KARAS: (Continuing) One of the things that
2 Kherchtou said to you that he learned in this training was
3 that there were four parts to an operation. There was
4 surveillance; there was targeting, which is what the bosses
5 would decide; there were facilitators, the people who would
6 supply; and then there were the executors, the people who
7 would carry out the operation. Ladies and gentlemen, you are
8 going to see that those four parts of an operation are very
9 similar to what Mohamed Al-'Owhali described to Agent Gaudin
10 in his confession. That is precisely what he was instructed
11 about, precisely the way Al Qaeda teaches its people that an
12 operation has to be carried out.
13 The corroboration from what Kherchtou says is seen in
14 one of the computer documents from Ali Mohamed's house in
15 California, Government's Exhibit 353. As I said, this is one
16 of the documents that is found on a computer in Ali Mohamed's
17 house. At the bottom of this page you see, it is written as
18 MO3 Iana plan. Number one, you write the date of the writing
19 of the plan; 2, the date of the starting of the execution; 3,
20 specifying the target; 4, the team doing the drawing and the
21 description; 5, the equipment; 6, the cover. That's how you
22 carry out a surveillance operation and that's what Kherchtou
23 said he was trained in and that's what you see in that
24 document.
25 One of the other documents found in Ali Mohamed's
5249
1 computer describes the four levels of organizing an operation,
2 Government's Exhibit 355, another document found in Ali
3 Mohamed's computer. At the very top there, you see how it is
4 described, the idea of working. Remember, one of the codes
5 that you learned about Al Qaeda, jihad is called work. Work
6 is not 9 to 5, doing your job and getting paid a salary, work
7 is doing jihad. Ali Mohamed describes it just as, and there
8 he says just like Kherchtou told you, headquarters,
9 information, preparation, execution, the four phases to an
10 operation that Al Qaeda is trained in, just as Kherchtou
11 described for you.
12 Kherchtou told you that after completing some of this
13 surveillance training, he took part in some electronics
14 training. He didn't graduate in the course but learned about
15 remote controls to be used in watches, radios and so forth,
16 and he mentioned to you that he himself knew that by 1992
17 there was discussion among Al Qaeda that the United States was
18 the enemy of Islam, that the United States was the enemy of
19 Islam. Indeed, by 1992 and 1993, the witness Jamal al-Fadl
20 told you that Bin Laden and Abu Hajer had issued a very
21 specific fatwah regarding the United States, that it was their
22 argument that the prophet Mohamed would not tolerate two
23 religions on the Holy Land and therefore they had to be
24 attacked. In their view, what the United States was doing was
25 Islamically correct. In their view, what that required, what
5250
1 that obligated was attacking the United States.
2 There has been some discussion about what is
3 Islamically correct and what isn't Islamically correct. You
4 are not a court that decides that. This isn't an Islamic
5 court. That's not the point, ladies and gentlemen. Whether
6 the imam Siraj Wahhaj is correct that the prohibition is that
7 there can only be two religions in Mecca or whether that
8 covers Saudi Arabia is not a question that you have to
9 resolve, because what matters is what Al Qaeda thinks, because
10 it is based on that premise that they carry out the actions
11 that they do, and from their perspective a long, long time
12 ago, it was the obligation of their members to carry out these
13 attacks.
14 Jamal al-Fadl described for you that these statements
15 and these fatwahs would be issued, that meetings would be held
16 among the inner circle of Al Qaeda, people who could be
17 trusted, at the guesthouse in the Riyadh section in Sudan. He
18 described to you that one of the people who would attend some
19 of these meetings would be the defendant Wadih El Hage.
20 Remember, ladies and gentlemen, what I said earlier. Only
21 those they trust can attend these meetings. You have to be
22 trusted to be allowed in.
23 One of the things that Al Qaeda did in 1992 and '93
24 in Sudan was set up a business network. Remember what Jamal
25 al-Fadl told you about Bin Laden's business. He told you in
5251
1 one story about how the group went to him and said the
2 business isn't going that well. And Bin Laden said to them
3 our purpose is bigger than business.
4 The business is bigger than jihad, ladies and
5 gentlemen. It provides resources that finance the operations.
6 It provides a way that employs the people that you want to
7 keep employed. It provides terrific cover if you want to
8 bring in munitions or have people travel. Al-Fadl told you
9 about the plane that went up with sugar to Afghanistan and
10 returned with guns and rockets. It's a great cover.
11 Al-Fadl described for you some of the companies that
12 were called Wadi al Aqiq. There was the company called Al
13 Hijra, the construction company, the farm company, and Al
14 Qudurat Transportation Company. The farm company, for
15 example, maintains the farms where Al Qaeda can meet and train
16 its members. Some of the prominent members of Al Qaeda were
17 some of the employees of these companies. They were some of
18 the managers. But first and foremost they were Al Qaeda
19 members. So yes, there was a lot of business going on. But
20 the motive wasn't profit. This wasn't an attempt to get on
21 the Fortune 500. This wasn't Money Incorporated, ladies and
22 gentlemen, this was about Jihad Inc. This was the purpose to
23 these businesses and this is why Al Qaeda used them.
24 One of the things that the witness Jamal al-Fadl
25 described for you that he did for the companies was, he was in
5252
1 charge of the payroll for the Al Qaeda people. Remember, he
2 described that people would get paid two salaries. They would
3 get paid a salary if they worked for the company, and those
4 who worked for the company and who worked for Al Qaeda got a
5 stipend. It was Jamal al-Fadl who was one of the people who
6 would hand out that Al Qaeda bonus, if you will.
7 Jamal al-Fadl told you that the person he trained to
8 replace him was the defendant Wadih El Hage. As far back as
9 in Sudan in 1993, this is one of the things that Wadih El Hage
10 does for Al Qaeda. Jamal al-Fadl gave you a very detailed
11 description of the offices that Al Qaeda had, the Wadi Al Aqiq
12 offices. Remember he said this person had an office, the
13 first office on the left and the second office on the left.
14 He described for you an office in the residential section of
15 Khartoum that was very exclusive, where Bin Laden had an
16 office and Abu Hajer had an office and Wadih El Hage had an
17 office. To get to Abu Hajer and to get to Bin Laden, you had
18 to get through El Hage. El Hage very early on serves as the
19 gatekeeper to both Abu Hajer and Bin Laden.
20 You remember the testimony of Essam al Ridi. He is
21 the person that we all remember who crashed Bin Laden's plane.
22 He is the person who described for you that same office, that
23 very exclusive office in that section in Khartoum in 1993.
24 Yes, Al Qaeda would sometimes send its people to buy
25 tractors. Yes, they would buy bicycles. Yes, they sold
5253
1 sesame seeds. But they also made efforts to buy chemical
2 weapons, and al-Fadl gave you that very specific story about
3 the group's efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. Nuclear
4 weapons, we submit, are not weapons that one uses when you
5 target one victim, it is when you go after targeting entire
6 people. That is what he was trying to do as far back as 1993,
7 al-Fadl told you.
8 Something else happens in 1992, 1993, and that
9 something else, ladies and gentlemen, is the peace-keeping
10 effort in Somalia. You know that at some point the United
11 States government joined the United Nations effort in Somalia,
12 and you heard from Dr. Samatar that there was mass starvation
13 in Somalia and the United Nations showed up in an effort to
14 deal with that problem.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, Al Qaeda had a different view
16 of that mission. The American presence in Somalia angered Al
17 Qaeda. They saw it as an effort to colonize Somalia, an
18 Islamic country. You heard that Abu Hajer joined with Usama
19 Bin Laden issue a fatwah to the members of Al Qaeda to do what
20 they can to stop the Americans, to drive them from Somalia.
21 The specific words that Bin Laden used were, we have to cut
22 off the head of the snake.
23 As far back as 1993, this is what is on Al Qaeda's
24 mind, the United States presence in Somalia.
25 Abu Hajer in his fatwah described how it was
5254
1 Islamically acceptable to attack the infidel, to attack the
2 enemy even if that meant that you were going to kill what they
3 called innocent third parties. Jamal al-Fadl told you about
4 how Abu Hajer relied on this scholar Ibn al Tamiyeh, who gave
5 the parable of the Tartars and the battle that justified these
6 attacks even if it meant killing innocent people.
7 Ladies and gentlemen, you are going to see that Bin
8 Laden is going to rely on this person Ibn Tamiyeh. In the
9 August 1996 declaration against the United States, Bin Laden
10 makes clear that we will do whatever it takes to drive
11 Americans from the Gulf, exactly the way al Fadl described it
12 for you. You saw it in a different form. When Khalfan Khamis
13 Mohamed was asked does it occur to you that you were going to
14 kill Tanzanians and not Americans, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed said
15 yes, that's part of the job, but if they're innocent, Allah
16 will take care of them, and if they're not, then they are
17 going to get what they deserve. That's exactly what al Fadl
18 said Abu Hajer told the group. If they are innocent, they
19 will go to paradise. If not, they will get what they deserve.
20 Is this really Islamically correct? I don't know.
21 But is it what Al Qaeda believed? Absolutely. And once they
22 adopt that belief, it makes perfect sense that they would
23 carry out among other things the operation of East Africa in
24 August of 1998.
25 So once Bin Laden and Abu Hajer raise a call to arms
5255
1 with respect to Somalia, Somalia becomes a magnet for Al Qaeda
2 people. Jamal al-Fadl described for you that Abu Hafs the
3 military commander took two trips. The first was for all
4 practical purposes a scouting mission. When he came back from
5 this trip he told Jamal al-Fadl that I went down there, I
6 don't think we can take America head on. This is what Jamal
7 al-Fadl said. He said there are different tribes down there.
8 There is no one in control. But we will start a little bit
9 and if it goes good we'll go bigger.
10 You know, the witness Dr. Samatar described for you
11 the situation in Somalia, that there were many tribes and that
12 they were fighting amongst each other and fighting
13 collectively against other tribes. That is exactly what Abu
14 Hafs recognized when he went there.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, Al Qaeda didn't storm the
16 beaches with an army and we are not submitting to you that Al
17 Qaeda members were the ones that fired the rockets or the
18 bullets or set off the mines. What we are saying to you is
19 that Al Qaeda sent people to Somalia to pursue its goal to
20 drive the Americans out of Somalia. If that meant training
21 people to carry out operations, that's what they would do. If
22 it meant training some who would train others, that's what
23 they would do.
24 At bottom what this reflects is that as far back as
25 1993, Al Qaeda is going to focus wherever America is and do
5256
1 whatever it thinks it can to carry out its mission. Abu Hafs
2 recognized the need and the limitations, but nonetheless, as
3 you will see, Al Qaeda did what it could to drive the
4 Americans out.
5 In fact, Jamal al-Fadl described a second trip that
6 Abu Hafs took, and when he returned from the second trip he
7 said that Al Qaeda was responsible for what happened to the
8 Americans. Again, does that mean he is saying that Al Qaeda
9 members were the ones that fired the guns? Not necessarily.
10 They are responsible, whether or not he is even telling the
11 truth, feel responsible, which tells you a great deal about
12 their mind set.
13 When the call to arms goes out, help comes from
14 everywhere. From Khartoum -- again, we are talking about
15 1993 -- you remember the testimony of Essam al Ridi, the pilot
16 who was called by Wadih El Hage when he was back in Texas to
17 see about buying a plane for Bin Laden. One of the things
18 that El Hage asked Essam al Ridi was if a plane would have
19 enough range to go from Pakistan to Sudan because he wanted to
20 know if Essam al Ridi would help deliver Stinger missiles from
21 Pakistan to Sudan, at precisely the same time that American
22 forces are in Somalia.
23 The other thing that Essam al Ridi told you was after
24 he bought the plane and brought it to Khartoum, Wadih El Hage
25 asked him to fly five members of Al Qaeda from Khartoum to
5257
1 Nairobi, which borders Somalia to the southwest. Essam al
2 Ridi told you these five people got on a plane and he
3 described the plane and that's all he told you. But remember,
4 Kherchtou told you that he remembers hearing that the Bin
5 Laden plane flew five people down from Khartoum to Nairobi,
6 one of them being Abu Hafs, the military commander, and that
7 those people went on to Somalia.
8 Same story, different perspectives, just like Mr.
9 Butler said. Different people from Al Qaeda who have
10 different perspectives, giving you from beginning to end, the
11 efforts by Al Qaeda and El Hage to help Al Qaeda fulfill its
12 goal with respect to Somalia.
13 Ladies and gentlemen, this is one of many examples
14 where you see Wadih El Hage acting as the facilitator for Al
15 Qaeda, not the mediator, the facilitator. Think of it in
16 terms of an army, but remember, this isn't really an army.
17 When an army fights, there are people who go to the front, but
18 there are important logistics people, facilitators who have to
19 make sure that the people at the front are fed, that they are
20 clothed, that they get communications, that they will get
21 messages. That is the role that Wadih El Hage serves. No.
22 We are not going to present any evidence that he wired any
23 bombs, that he offered any training, that he received any
24 training. But that doesn't make him not in this conspiracy.
25 On the contrary, what the evidence shows is that he provides
5258
1 an essential role for Al Qaeda. Remember what Kherchtou says?
2 You don't have to fire a gun to be in Al Qaeda. You don't
3 have to fire a gun to be part of this. Kherchtou was one of
4 the facilitators and you will see others, and that is one of
5 the roles that Wadih El Hage plays in this conspiracy.
6 Kherchtou described the perspective from Nairobi, the
7 help that was offered in Somalia from the south. Remember, he
8 said that he was specifically ordered to go to Nairobi to help
9 out any way he could. He was a facilitator. He was somebody
10 who was there to provide housing. He was somebody who was
11 there to provide visas and translating if they needed, and
12 Kherchtou told you about some of the people that went into
13 Somalia on behalf of Al Qaeda. He described somebody by the
14 name of Abu Mohamed el Masry, who we know is al Saleh. He
15 described Saif al Adel and a person by the name of Shuaib. We
16 will talk about those people later on.
17 In particular what Kherchtou told you was that he
18 remembers Harun, Wadih El Hage's future deputy, telling you
19 that he and Saleh, this person known as Abu Mohamed el
20 Masry -- just to give you some perspective, this is a person
21 pictured in Government's Exhibit 119. This is Saleh. And
22 that Harun told Kherchtou that he and Saleh went into
23 Mogadishu in Somalia and worked with some of the local tribes
24 to try to construct a truck bomb to attack the UN forces that
25 were there, an effort that was unsuccessful. And Harun told
5259
1 Kherchtou that they were there one day in a neighborhood in
2 Mogadishu in a building when they saw helicopter gun fight,
3 helicopter firing in a building that was in the neighborhood.
4 Harun told Kherchtou that after that they decided they had to
5 get out because they might get caught, some of the people that
6 went to Somalia, ladies and gentlemen, that you will see over
7 and over again, all of which is a reflection of what Al Qaeda
8 was doing at the time and who they were targeting.
9 Kherchtou told you about the electronics contractor
10 who worked in Pakistan, person who worked with the remote
11 devices, he was in Nairobi at the time. One of the other
12 people that Kherchtou said was in Somalia was the person he
13 knew as Marwan. That's the defendant Odeh. In fact you
14 remember the defendant Odeh in his statement to the FBI said
15 in fact that he was given an order by Bin Laden through an Al
16 Qaeda intermediary, somebody by the same of Saif al Adel, to
17 go to Somalia, and the mission was that Al Qaeda was going to
18 train a group the most closely aligned to Al Qaeda. That's
19 what Odeh did. He went to Somalia, the southeastern part of
20 Somalia, and he provided training to one of the groups there.
21 Remember, what Odeh told the group was, this is a group that
22 feared, just like Al Qaeda did, that the UN was going to cause
23 this group to lose its power, and Odeh described a fire fight
24 that involved the tribe and a UN force down in the southern
25 part of Somalia.
5260
1 When he was in Somalia, Odeh met up with Abu Hafs,
2 the military commander of Al Qaeda. Abu Hafs told Odeh that
3 what he did was, he went to Mogadishu and he met with some of
4 the groups, and one of the people he met with was Fahad Aidad,
5 one of the more prominent warlords in Somalia. Abu Hafs told
6 Odeh that Al Qaeda had agreed to work with Aidad and others to
7 attack the Americans. Again, just like Abu Hafs described,
8 tribes fighting tribes, go in a little bit and see if it's
9 good, and maybe we will go bigger.
10 The other thing Odeh told the FBI, while he was in
11 Somalia he met with somebody named Daroud, who told him that
12 he had participated in attacks against the United Nations and
13 the United Nations was leaving.
14 The final thing to consider about Odeh and Somalia,
15 ladies and gentlemen, he told the FBI he was there in March
16 1993 and he left in November 1993, again, at the heart of the
17 time when the American forces are in Somalia, the heart of the
18 time that all this other activity that Al Qaeda is engaging in
19 to drive the Americans from Somalia is going on.
20 That is where Al Qaeda sits in 1993, and you see the
21 import of Somalia in a number of ways. First, it tells you
22 about the mind set, and we talked about that. Second, who Al
23 Qaeda sends to Somalia introduces you to some of the people
24 that you will see play a more prominent role in this
25 conspiracy as it evolves and develops. The third thing is,
5261
1 you will see a number of different ways it corroborates
2 precisely what Kherchtou told you about al Fadl, where he too
3 claims credit for what happens in Somalia.
4 The last thing, ladies and gentlemen, the reason
5 Somalia is important, it establishes the link between Al Qaeda
6 and Nairobi. Remember what I said at the beginning. The
7 thing about this conspiracy and why it makes sense for us to
8 do this chronically, you see that events have a cause and
9 effect relationship. Because Al Qaeda wanted to target
10 Somalia, they decided they had to set up operations in
11 Nairobi. Once they set up operations in Nairobi, they have a
12 foundation in place that they are going to make use of five
13 years later to attack the embassies in East Africa.
14 What you know not only from Jamal al-Fadl and not
15 only from Kherchtou but from some of the documents that were
16 seized and the phone records and communications, it is that Al
17 Qaeda has offices all over the world. It is like a
18 multinational organization. It has hubs. It has headquarters
19 in Afghanistan. It has headquarters in Sudan. It has a hub
20 in Nairobi. It has a hub up here in Azerbaijan. We will go
21 through telephone calls with Al Qaeda people in Germany.
22 There were documents seized in England. But one of the key
23 hubs is going to be Nairobi. And of course if you are Al
24 Qaeda, you want to make sure that the people you have running
25 that hub are people you trust and people who will do what you
5262
1 need them to do, something that will play out as a very
2 important factor as we go through the evidence.
3 THE COURT: Is this a good time?
4 MR. KARAS: Yes, your Honor.
5 THE COURT: We will take a break.
6 (Jury excused)
7 THE COURT: Mr. Wilford.
8 MR. WILFORD: Your Honor, may we be heard in the
9 robing room?
10 THE COURT: Yes.
11 (Pages 5263 through 5265 sealed)
12 (Continued on next page)
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17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5266
1 (Recess)
2 (Jury present)
3 MR. KARAS: May I proceed, your Honor?
4 THE COURT: Yes, please.
5 MR. KARAS: We left off in Nairobi in 1993, and what
6 I was saying was that the witness Kherchtou was the person who
7 had been sent to Nairobi to the base of operations, the new
8 base in Nairobi at the time that Al Qaeda was targeting the
9 American presence in Somalia. Kherchtou told you about two
10 people that he met when he first got to Nairobi. The first
11 was somebody who he knew by the name of Nawawi. We see
12 pictured here in Government's Exhibit 4-12. Nawawi's real
13 name is Ihab Ali, and you see a couple of his other nicknames,
14 Abu Suliman, and Joseph Kenana and Abu Jaffar al Tayar. He is
15 another person who lurks in the background as we go through
16 this chronology. He is somebody who is an Al Qaeda member,
17 and he is somebody who ends up in Florida and somebody who is
18 going to be exchanging communications with Wadih El Hage,
19 communications that Wadih El Hage denied having any knowledge
20 of before the grand jury in September of 1998. We will talk
21 about those communications, but this is somebody that
22 Kherchtou told you he met in 1993 in Nairobi.
23 Another person who he met there is displayed in
24 Government's Exhibit 4-13. This was somebody he told you he
25 knew among other names as Abu Khalid al Nubi down at the
5267
1 bottom. This, ladies and gentlemen, is Mustafa Fadhl, who
2 also goes by the name Abu Jihad and Khalid. Khalid is a name
3 you will see in some of the documents that Wadih El Hage
4 brings back, documents that talk about the new policy that
5 Wadih El Hage brings back, to militarize the cell in East
6 Africa when he returns from his visit with Bin Laden in 1997.
7 You will see references to Khalid in some of those documents.
8 Mustafa al-Fadl is one of the prominent members of the cell in
9 East Africa and he is a person who among other things is going
10 to be in charge of the operation in Dar es Salaam to blow up
11 the embassy in Dar es Salaam. He is the person who is
12 identified by Khalfan Khamis Mohamed as the person who
13 approached him to do the jihad mission in March of 1998. He
14 is the person that Khalfan Khamis Mohamed lives with at that
15 bomb factory that Khalfan Khamis Mohamed rented at 213 Ilala.
16 This is what I was saying earlier, ladies and
17 gentlemen. You see these participants in this case come up
18 early. They are participants in the conspiracy to murder US
19 nationals.
20 Let me just say for a moment, by the way, when I talk
21 about the conspiracy to murder US nationals and Al Qaeda's
22 involvement, I am talking about the first count in the
23 indictment, the count which charges a conspiracy among the
24 people you will see named in that indictment that include
25 these defendants and others, some of whom were members of Al
5268
1 Qaeda, to murder nationals of the United States. What I ask
2 you to bear in mind, and we will go through the counts,
3 probably tomorrow, that there are four conspiracies. There is
4 a conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against
5 American targets, there is a conspiracy to kill the officers
6 and employees of the United States government, and there is a
7 conspiracy to destroy American buildings by way of explosives.
8 So when I say the conspiracy, what I am referring to, in
9 shorthand, is the first count, the conspiracy to murder
10 nationals of the United States. We will talk about the other
11 conspiracy counts. But I wanted to alert you to that at this
12 point as we go through the evidence.
13 One of the things that Kherchtou said that he was
14 supposed to do was to learn how to fly, and he was sent to a
15 school in Nairobi. He told you that when he first got to
16 Nairobi, he stayed at a Ramada Hotel and that after he met
17 Nawawi and Mohamed Abu al Nubi, he met some other people,
18 including Abu Ubaidah al Banshiri, the person who is the
19 military commander of Al Qaeda. What Kherchtou told you about
20 Abu Ubaidah was that Abu Ubaidah lived a secret life in
21 Nairobi. He had a second wife in Nairobi, he had another wife
22 that was, I believe, up in Khartoum. Kherchtou told you that
23 that was something that very few people knew about, that
24 Ubaidah had a second wife and family, that it was something
25 that he was keeping secret. You may remember the testimony of
5269
1 Ashif Juma, the person who was with Abu Ubaidah in the ferry
2 accident, he is the brother-in-law of Abu Ubaidah. He told
3 you that when Abu Ubaidah got married to his sister, there was
4 nobody from Abu Ubaidah's side of the family who was at that
5 wedding. That aligns precisely with what Kherchtou told you
6 about the life that Abu Ubaidah was living in Kenya at the
7 time.
8 The other person that Kherchtou introduced you to was
9 somebody by the name of Khalid al Fawwaz, who is pictured in
10 Government's Exhibit 4-11. You will see his aliases down
11 below, Abu Omar al Sebai and Hamad. What Kherchtou told you
12 was, for example, when he needed expenses paid for the flight
13 school or the hotel, he would go to Abu Ubaidah, and if Abu
14 Ubaidah wasn't around, he would go to this person pictured in
15 government 4-11, Khalid al Fawwaz. Fawwaz was somebody who
16 helped run the base in Nairobi for Al Qaeda. He worked under
17 Abu Ubaidah. He is someone you will see shortly is replaced
18 by the defendant Wadih El Hage.
19 One of the things that Kherchtou told you about Abu
20 Fawwaz, and this is a common refrain within the Al Qaeda
21 story, Fawwaz tried to start a business in Nairobi, and he
22 named it Asma, and it was named after Fawwaz's daughter. The
23 business didn't work out. He tried to import some vehicles
24 from Dubai, and at the end of the day the business failed
25 because the cars were expensive and he couldn't resell them.
5270
1 One of the ways you know Kherchtou is telling you
2 exactly the truth about this, there are documents found in
3 Wadih El Hage's files that belong to Khalid Fawwaz. For
4 example, you see Government's Exhibit 626 on the screen.
5 Government's Exhibit 626 is one of the documents that I
6 mentioned. This is an articles of association of this company
7 Asma Ltd. that Kherchtou described Khalid al Fawwaz tried to
8 find. This is the first page. If you take a look at the
9 bottom of the first page, you see the name of the attorney who
10 prepared these papers, M.M. Chaudhri. That is a name that
11 Kherchtou testified about in connection with the group's
12 efforts to free Fawwaz when he was arrested by Kenyan
13 authorities, something we will talk about in a minute.
14 If you take a look towards the end of this document,
15 you will see who the ostensible board of directors is of this
16 company. Mohammed Karama Salim, businessman; Khalid al
17 Fawwaz, businessman; and Jalal Fouad, businessman. Just like
18 Kherchtou told you, Fawwaz starts the business, and the person
19 at the bottom, Jalal Fouad, you will see, is Abu Ubaidah, the
20 person who dies in the ferry accident, Abu Ubaidah the
21 military commander who Wadih El Hage is going to not only lie
22 about but even deny that he knew him by that name Jalal.
23 So you see, as far back as 1993 and into 1994, Khalid
24 al Fawwaz and the others are playing out the Al Qaeda play
25 book in Nairobi. They are establishing businesses, they are
5271
1 living in Nairobi, but they are actually also carrying out the
2 activities of Al Qaeda. You will see the connections here
3 between these two gentlemen in this business.
4 There were other documents that were found among
5 Wadih El Hage's files and we are not going to display them
6 now. We will talk about them later. But there were phone
7 records registered in Khalid al Fawwaz's name, Government
8 Exhibit 626. A copy of Fawwaz's passport, Government's
9 Exhibit 622A. There was a stamp for Asma Ltd., Government's
10 Exhibit 629, and a business card for Abu Karama Muslim,
11 Government's Exhibit 630.
12 You heard from Kherchtou that before Ramadan in 1994,
13 which there was a stipulation on was February of 1994, so
14 before that, he remembered his former surveillance trainer Abu
15 Mohamed al Amriki come to Nairobi with the person Anas al
16 Liby, the person with whom he received the surveillance
17 training. Remember Anas al Liby and Ali Mohamed. Ali
18 Mohamed, the trainer who Kherchtou knew as Abu Mohamed al
19 Amriki, and the computer expert, who did the computer training
20 on surveillance. What Kherchtou told you was that they
21 arrived sometime before February and other Al Qaeda people
22 show up right about this time: Abu Hafs, the military
23 commander; Abu Fadhl al Makkee, one of the founders, leader of
24 Al Qaeda; and Abu Ubaidah.
25 This is precisely when it was that Ali Mohamed
5272
1 arrived. If you look, for example, at Government's Exhibit
2 362, this is Ali Mohamed's passport. If you take a look at
3 page 7 of that, you see an entry stamp for his arrival into
4 Nairobi on the 9th of December 1993. If we take a look at
5 Khalid al Fawwaz's passport, which I had mentioned earlier is
6 Government's Exhibit 622A, and one of the documents found in
7 Wadih el Hage's files, there you see the Saudi passport for
8 Khalid al Fawwaz, and there you see on the left, and being
9 highlighted for you, is the entry stamp for December 17, 1993.
10 What Kherchtou tells you is that Abu Mohamed al Amriki and
11 Anas al Liby set up a photographic operation in Kherchtou's
12 apartment. They set up a camera and photo developing
13 equipment and folders and they set up a lab. He told you that
14 one day he was walking down the street on Moi Avenue about
15 five hundred meters from the American embassy, and Abu
16 Moustafa Karama. He told you he knew that Al Qaeda was
17 targeting the United States. He also told you this is a time
18 when Abu Hafs, the military commander, and Khalid al Fawwaz
19 was also in Nairobi. What I submit to you, ladies and
20 gentlemen, is that what Kherchtou was telling you about as
21 corroborated by some of the other physical evidence is that Al
22 Qaeda members and those associated with Al Qaeda are there to
23 conduct surveillance of American targets. One of the targets
24 that you know they were near with a camera was the American
25 Embassy. You will see evidence, of course, that other people
5273
1 in this conspiracy participated in the bombing of the American
2 Embassy.
3 Anas al Liby, the person with the camera, he is the
4 person I mentioned earlier was living in Manchester in the
5 United Kingdom. By way of stipulation you learned there was a
6 search of this place in Manchester and one of the things found
7 in this search was a passport. If you look at Government's
8 Exhibit 1675, you see the passport and the name there, Al
9 Raghie Nazeh, if you see on the top right. You see the
10 picture and you compare that to the picture of Government's
11 Exhibit 112. If you compare it also on the right-hand side of
12 the screen to Government's Exhibit 604, 604 is a series of
13 passport-size photos that are found among Wadih El Hage's
14 files in that MIRA office in 1998, and one of those photos is
15 a photo of Anas al Liby, who has that passport in Manchester
16 in the United Kingdom. One of the things found in the search
17 of Anas al Liby's house is a document that is a manual on
18 terrorist activities. In fact, if you look at Government's
19 Exhibit 1677, the second page, the document is entitled
20 Declaration of Jihad Holy War Against the Countries, Tyrants,
21 Military Series. On the 12th page of that document there is a
22 description about how to organize for operations, and it
23 describes forged documents, counterfeit currency, apartments
24 and hiding places, communication means, transportation means,
25 and on down. At the bottom of that document there is a
5274
1 description that one of the things this document advocates
2 attacking, number 7, blasting and destroying the embassies and
3 attacking vital economic centers.
4 So, ladies and gentlemen, you have in 1993 the person
5 who does the surveillance training for Al Qaeda, the person
6 who is the expert in the computers, the person with the camera
7 near the embassy, developing pictures in a secret lab,
8 attending meetings with other prominent people in Al Qaeda, at
9 a time when Al Qaeda is targeting the United States.
10 Now we get to 1994. 1994, during Ramadan, Kherchtou
11 tells you, which you know is in February 1994, Kherchtou tells
12 that you Khalid al Fawwaz, among others, gets arrested, and
13 one of the people who helps out to get Khalid al Fawwaz
14 released is Abu Fadhl, the person pictured in Government's
15 Exhibit 117, again, Mustafa Fadhl, the person that Kherchtou
16 met when he first got to Kenya, the person who is going to
17 carry out the operation to bomb the embassy in Dar es Salaam.
18 What Kherchtou told you was that when Fawwaz got arrested, he
19 reached out for a lawyer named Mr. Chaudhri, the lawyer who
20 prepared the documents for Asma Ltd., who told you about their
21 efforts to get him. Kherchtou also told you that the group
22 contacted Abu Ubaidah who was at the time in Sudan to spend
23 the time and money to get Khalid Fawwaz out, and Abu Ubaidah
24 gave his blessing.
25 Eventually they get Khalid Fawwaz out from jail and
5275
1 what you learn from Kherchtou and you see in the other
2 exhibits, Khalid al Fawwaz leaves Nairobi. What I submit to
3 you, ladies and gentlemen, is, he leaves Nairobi and he goes
4 to London, which you will see him and we will talk about,
5 because he has attracted the attention of the authorities, and
6 to take the heat off the group Khalid al Fawwaz is going to
7 get out of town to make sure the attention he is attracting
8 doesn't spill over to the others in the group. You will see
9 this played out by Wadih El Hage three years later.
10 What Kherchtou tells you is that when Khalid al
11 Fawwaz leaves, soon thereafter, who arrives from Sudan but the
12 defendant Wadih El Hage. He specifically described it as
13 Wadih El Hage took over. Kherchtou told you that when Wadih
14 El Hage arrived, he lived with Wadih El Hage. First they
15 lived together in a hotel. Then he told you that Wadih El
16 Hage rented a place, Fedha Estates, which had a house and
17 separate back place where he would stay. You know that is
18 exactly right, because Agent Coleman who testified about the
19 search of the Wadih El Hage's house, you remember he testified
20 that they got some tapes in that separate back house. What
21 does Kherchtou telling you about being with Wadih El Hage in
22 Nairobi? He tells you that he personally sees him meet with
23 Abu Hafs, the military commander of Al Qaeda. He says they
24 meet two or three times in Wadih El Hage's house in Nairobi.
25 Kherchtou was there for those meetings. He tells you that El
5276
1 Hage and Abu Hafs took one of the cars that belonged to Al
2 Qaeda and took a trip to Mombasa, and wouldn't tell Kherchtou
3 what they were doing there.
4 Kherchtou also told you about how they came to Wadih
5 El Hage and Kherchtou about arranging some travel for Abu Hafs
6 and specifically told him do not tell Abu Mohamed al Amriki
7 because I do not want him to know the alias I am traveling on.
8 So when he needed to make a secret trip and wanted people to
9 facilitate the trip, he went to the people that he trusted.
10 Kherchtou told you about it, and he told you it was him and El
11 Hage the military commander trusted. It is the same Abu Hafs
12 that Wadih El Hage will lie about in the grand jury in 1997
13 and 1998.
14 Kherchtou also told you that Abu Hafs and Wadih El
15 Hage met together many times and that Wadih El Hage was one of
16 the people in on Abu Ubaidah's secret life in Kenya. He told
17 you the story about the watch that had Wadih's name on it and
18 ultimately ended up with Abu Ubaidah's wife. Kherchtou also
19 told you the story about Abu al Nalfi, the person with the
20 amputated leg, purchased dogs for security and Kherchtou went
21 out and got these dogs and arranged to have them shipped to
22 the Sudan.
23 What else happened in 1994? Mohamed Odeh settles in
24 Mombasa in Kenya, along the coast. He is set up in a fishing
25 business by Abu Hafs, the same military commander, who gives
5277
1 him a boat and a couple of employees and agrees to give him an
2 Al Qaeda salary. You know about some of this business because
3 of some of the documents found once again in Wadih El Hage's
4 files. If you look at Government's Exhibit 614, 614 is a
5 letter -- you can see it is dated January 1995, from Mohammed
6 Karama, who appoints Mohamed Odeh, and he gives an i.d.,
7 1773666, an i.d. that you will see is the i.d. number that was
8 obtained when he got his identification in Kenya, which we
9 will see in Government Exhibit 507 on the right. It is being
10 highlighted for you. There you see Odeh's Kenyan i.d. number.
11 There are a couple of other things that are
12 interesting about this document regarding Odeh's i.d. number.
13 If we pull up on the left Government's Exhibit 508 and if we
14 highlight down at the bottom where it talks about mother's
15 names, where each applicant is to give their mother's names --
16 I just want to highlight the lower section of each one -- on
17 the left, and now it's been magnified for you, is the
18 application for Mustafa Fadhl. You will see that he lists his
19 mother as Marion Omar Hassan. By the way, he claims he was
20 born in Mombasa. Let's look at what Odeh puts down for his
21 mother's name. Miriam Omar. The other thing you see on that
22 document is that Odeh lists his country of birth as Kenya,
23 which is something he did not tell the agents. He told the
24 agents he was not from Kenya.
25 The other thing that happens in 1994 -- remember I
5278
1 told you Khalid al Fawwaz, the person that Wadih El Hage
2 replaced, after his release he goes to London, England, and
3 what he does is, he sets up an organization called the Advice
4 and Reformation Committee. It is set up with the support of
5 Usama Bin Laden. If you look at Government's Exhibit 1606, a
6 document found in Khalid al Fawwaz's house in London, this is
7 a document that establishes by way of resolution -- and you
8 see the signature there of Usama Bin Laden, and if we look at
9 Government's Exhibit 1606-T, you see that July 1994 is when it
10 is that Khalid al Fawwaz is set up as the leader of the London
11 office of the Advice and Reformation Committee. What I submit
12 to you, ladies and gentlemen, is, the Advice and Reformation
13 Committee is another front organization. It is something
14 again that is out of the Al Qaeda play book. They establish a
15 front. They can do what apparently are legitimate activities
16 that are used to shield a second line of work, work that
17 supports the activities of Al Qaeda.
18 Towards the end of 1994, Kherchtou tells you that Ali
19 Mohamed, Abu Mohamed al Amriki, comes back to Nairobi and that
20 there is a meeting that takes place just among Kherchtou and
21 Abu Mohamed al Amriki. What he says is that Abu Mohamed told
22 Kherchtou that Abu Hafs and he, Kherchtou, were supposed to go
23 do some surveillance work of French targets in Senegal and
24 that they were going to do that together, but that they ended
25 up not going because what happened was, according to
5279
1 Kherchtou, there was a phone call that came in on the mobile
2 phone that Wadih El Hage had, and Wadih El Hage had some
3 issues that he needed to resolve in the United States, some
4 problems.
5 What you see in Government's Exhibit 364C, one of
6 those many summary charts that you saw, this one is calls from
7 a number in California, 408-244-1209. That is Ali Mohamed's
8 phone back in California. You see on October 18, 1994, two
9 calls: 254, which is the country call for Kenya, 7120221,
10 which is the mobile phone number that El Hage used, just as
11 Kherchtou described for you.
12 What you know by way of stipulation is that Ali
13 Mohamed was dealing with the American authorities back here in
14 the United States. There are discussions with an FBI agent,
15 there are discussions with a prosecutor, and there are
16 telephone calls at right around the same time these meetings
17 are going on, again from Ali Mohamed's phone. You can see the
18 calls there back and forth to the numbers in America. And you
19 also see a call there on December 20 to the mobile phone for
20 Wadih El Hage. And then again down at the bottom on December
21 22 there are two calls. So while Ali Mohamed is dealing with
22 the American officials, he is maintaining contact with the
23 Wadih El Hage mobile number in Nairobi.
24 That is where things stand as of 1994. You have met
25 some of the participants in Al Qaeda, some of the members in
5280
1 Al Qaeda, some of the people who went to Somalia to further Al
2 Qaeda's goals there, and you see that the Nairobi base of
3 operations is firmly in place by 1994. You saw Harun, and he
4 was one of the people who went to Somalia. You saw Mustafa
5 Fadhl, one of the Al Qaeda members who will show up later in
6 the bombing in Dar es Salaam. Mohamed Odeh is set up in his
7 Al Qaeda fishing business. Khalid al Fawwaz, one of the
8 leaders within the base in Nairobi, has moved on to London.
9 And of course, Wadih El Hage, his replacement is in place by
10 1994.
11 In May of 1996, you heard from Kherchtou and from
12 others that people learned that Abu Ubaidah drowned, the
13 people within Al Qaeda learned. And you heard firsthand what
14 happened from the witness Ashif Juma, because he was on the
15 ferryboat with Abu Ubaidah. If we look at Government's
16 Exhibit 257, you see exactly where it is that this accident
17 took place. There was a lot of discussion about Lake
18 Victoria, and you see that Lake Victoria is basically on the
19 Kenya, Tanzania border.
20 Soon after the accident, you heard from Ashif Juma,
21 Harun shows up to conduct an investigation of the accident,
22 and in fact there was a videotape that was played for you
23 where Harun is identified as one of the people who was
24 captured on that videotape. One of the things that Kherchtou
25 told you was that everybody in Al Qaeda knew about Abu
5281
1 Ubaidah's drowning because everybody in Al Qaeda respected Abu
2 Ubaidah. In particular, Kherchtou told you when he spoke to
3 Wadih El Hage about Abu Ubaidah's death, Wadih El Hage cried,
4 which is something that you should bear in mind when Wadih El
5 Hage denies having any knowledge about that ferryboat incident
6 and denies participation in the investigation of the ferry
7 accident itself.
8 What did Ashif Juma tell you? He told you that Wadih
9 El Hage referred to the person he knew as Jalal, that Abu
10 Ubaidah was referred to by El Hage as Jalal, something that
11 Wadih El Hage is going to deny in front of the grand jury two
12 years later. If you look at Government's Exhibit 603, which
13 is effectively a note, an IOU, it is signed by Wadih El Hage
14 and it involves Ashif Juma. It commits Ashif Juma to having
15 borrowed the amount of 9 million Tanzanian shillings from
16 Mohammed Karama through Jalal Fouad. Remember, Jalal Fahad
17 was the name you saw on the articles of incorporation of Asma,
18 the business that Khalid al Fadhl set up. This is Abu
19 Ubaidah, ladies and gentlemen, and this is Wadih El Hage
20 signing a contract where he is referring to Jalal Fouad, Abu
21 Ubaidah.
22 One of the things that Ashif Juma told you was that
23 there was a discussion that he had with Wadih El Hage in a
24 hotel that was near Lake Victoria and that Wadih El Hage
25 specifically asked what Ashif Juma knew about Abu Ubaidah.
5282
1 What they were concerned with, ladies and gentlemen, what Al
2 Qaeda was concerned with, what Harun and El Hage were there to
3 investigate was whether or not any secrets that Abu Ubaidah
4 had with him, any objects were going to fall into the wrong
5 hands. That is why El Hage and Harun are there. You will see
6 later on evidence that they actually prepared a report which
7 they distribute to other people who are connected with this
8 case, and in particular we are going to go through a report
9 that was found in, of all places, Ali Mohamed's house in
10 California during the search in 1998, a report that Ashif Juma
11 read and said was accurate and said he did not prepare. Among
12 other reasons, he doesn't read, write or speak Arabic.
13 The other main event that happens in 1996 is in
14 August, and this is when Usama Bin Laden issues the
15 declaration of jihad against the United States. It is issued
16 on August 23, 1996, and if we take a look at one of the
17 copies, Government's Exhibit 1600A-T, this is a copy that is
18 found in Khalid al Fawwaz's place in London. We will go
19 through this, but remember that we showed you during the trial
20 that Khalid al Fawwaz had an electronic copy of this, that
21 there was a directory of files, there was a directory listing
22 under the message and electronic copies actually found on a
23 computer disk in Khalid al Fawwaz's house. This is going to
24 be the document, ladies and gentlemen, where Bin Laden is
25 going to now take public, take public his view that the
5283
1 Americans have to be driven from the Saudi Arabian gulf by
2 whatever means are necessary.
3 If we look at the second page of the document, the
4 first thing you notice in the second full paragraph is, within
5 this paragraph about halfway down, there are references to
6 some people that Bin Laden is going to talk about again and
7 again. One of the people he refers to about halfway down the
8 line that begins with the word heaven, he mentions Omar Abdel
9 Rahman in America. He says in his words, the crusader Jewish
10 alliance killed the symbols of honest scholars and advocates
11 and was sent by no one but Allah.
12 (Continued on next page)
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5284
1 MR. KARAS: (Continuing) And remember what the
2 witness Jamal al-Fadhl told you: That there were people
3 within al Qaeda that were angry at America because of the
4 arrest of Omar Abdel Rahman and that some people left the
5 group because they were disappointed that al Qaeda didn't do
6 something to retaliate about the arrest. Well, here you have
7 corroborating what Al-Fadhl is telling you. Bin Laden voicing
8 his anger at the United States for the arrest of Omar Abdel
9 Rahman.
10 Now, the other thing that this document mentions is
11 two other scholars, somebody by the name of al-Hawali and
12 somebody by the name of al Tawbah, and we'll see those names
13 come up later in connection with the claims for
14 responsibilities.
15 Now, if we go to the next, the last full paragraph
16 down there, remember I mentioned to you earlier about how the
17 witness, Jamal Al-Fadhl, described this fatwah that Abu Hajer
18 had given about how it was proper to kill innocents in the
19 course of attacks against infidels, and the basis for this
20 were the teaching of Ibn al Tamiyeah.
21 There you see, ladies and gentlemen, Usama Bin Laden
22 is talking about Ibn al Tamiyeh, and what he specifically
23 mentions is the story of the Tartar. "Furthermore, Ibn al
24 Tamiyeh, after mentioning the Tartar and their behavior in
25 changing the law of Allah: The ultimate aim of pleasing
5285
1 Allah, raising his word, instituting his religion and obeying
2 his messenger, peace be upon them, is to fight the enemy in
3 every aspect and in complete manner: If the danger to the
4 religion from not fighting is greater than that of fighting,
5 then it is a duty to fight them even if the intention of some
6 of the fighters is not pure, i.e., fighting for the sake of
7 leadership or if they do not observe some of the rules and
8 commandments of Islam."
9 It may very well be that killing innocents is not to
10 be sanctioned, but if the choice is defeat by the enemies of
11 Islam, then you do what you have to do. That is how Bin Laden
12 interprets Ibn al Tamiyeh and that is the basis for his call
13 to his followers -- to carry out the attacks against the
14 United States, because that is the number one priority.
15 Now, Bin Laden doesn't mince words, and at the bottom
16 of the 11th page of this document, if you highlight the last
17 paragraph down there, "Though we know the regime," referring
18 to the Saudi regime, "is fully responsible for what had
19 happened to the country and to its tiresome people that the
20 cause of disease and its tribulations is the occupying
21 American enemy so all effort must be directed at this enemy,
22 kill it, fight it, destroy it, break it down, plot against it,
23 ambush it, and God the almighty willing, until it is gone."
24 And now what Bin Laden is doing is he's taking the
25 statements that he privately shared with the members of al
5286
1 Qaeda in the guesthouse in Khartoum, Sudan and he is taking it
2 public.
3 Ladies and gentlemen, Bin Laden didn't wake up that
4 morning and decide that, oh, there are troops in America for
5 five years so this is the cause we're going to take on. This
6 is the evolution of the theme that he established for al Qaeda
7 since the troops arrived, since al Qaeda set up its operations
8 in Khartoum, since Bin Laden and Abu Hajer preached to the
9 other members of al Qaeda that it was their mission to drive
10 the American forces from Saudi Arabia. This is the foundation
11 of what Bin Laden believes and everything else feeds off of
12 that.
13 Everywhere he looks, he sees the American enemy and
14 he says that every effort must be pooled to kill the American
15 enemy. And you'll remember that the witness Jamal Al-Fadhl
16 told you that when he first approached the Americans in 1996,
17 he said, you're going to want to talk to me because these
18 people are waging a war against you. And they may want to
19 attack one of your embassies. As far as back as 1996 that is
20 what one of the members of al Qaeda believed to be the case.
21 Now, another thing that happens in 1996 that tells
22 you a great deal about the activities in this case is that the
23 group purchases a satellite phone, within three months of the
24 declaration of Jihad. And the satellite phone that you heard
25 about was the one that Marilyn Morelli from Ogara Satellite
5287
1 Networks testified to, and she told you some basic facts about
2 satellite phones -- that they are often used in remote areas;
3 that if you want to call a satellite phone, you have got to
4 know the three-digit prefix that corresponds to the ocean
5 region; and the satellite phone isn't like any other ordinary
6 phone where you use it, you get the bill and you pay it, you
7 have to purchase minutes in advance, using one of those cards
8 that comes with a number and then you call off the number of
9 minutes that you have.
10 Now, you saw the documents that show that a person by
11 the name of Ziyad Khalil purchased this phone, and his name
12 appears on the records, Government Exhibit 592. And there are
13 a series of documents in there where he is the one who
14 purchases this phone on November 1, 1996. And ladies and
15 gentlemen, this phone -- you saw this chart many times
16 throughout this trial -- is the phone that Bin Laden and the
17 others will use to carry out their war against the United
18 States.
19 682505331 is the phone number that is assigned to
20 that phone, and in 1996 up through October 1998, if you wanted
21 to call the phone, you had to dial 873 and then the number.
22 And what you see, ladies and gentlemen, is this phone appears
23 in the address books of many of the people connected to this
24 case, starting with Wadih El Hage. The pop-up phone book,
25 Government Exhibit 304, the phone book that's found in Wadih
5288
1 El Hage's house, page 11, there's a reference there to Hafusa,
2 Abu Hafs, 873682/505331.
3 Khalid al Fawwaz, the person that El Hage replaced in
4 Nairobi, he's got several references in his phone books. If
5 we take a look at Government Exhibit 1629, which is one of the
6 address books that's found in Khalid al Fawwaz' house, this is
7 a translation of one of the pages. He does not put Abu Hafs
8 down, he goes with Dr. Mohamed Atef, 873-682505331.
9 And you know that Abu Hafs is Mohamed Atef, because
10 there is a telephone call that comes from, I think -- excuse
11 me, that goes to Wadih El Hage's number and there is a message
12 left with El Hage's wife saying Abu Hafs is calling, it's
13 Mohamed Atef. And Khalid al Fawwaz is referring to Mohamed
14 Atef using the satellite phone number.
15 He's got another reference in Government Exhibit
16 1631, which is another address book found in Khalid al Fawwaz'
17 house, and that is a copy of the address book itself. Now,
18 we'll get to the translation in a minute, but if you see the
19 number on the left there, 837655, and if we go to the
20 translation, and that's part of the translation, Mohamed Atef,
21 and there is a number in Karachi and then the other number
22 that's assigned to Mohamed Atef, 837655.
23 Now what's interesting about that, Mohamed Atef,
24 remember, is Abu Hafs, and if you will remember -- we'll go
25 through this -- all the fax headers that we took a look at
5289
1 during the trial, and Kandahar Communications, AFG, and the
2 number there was 837655. This is Government Exhibit 2550,
3 this is a map of a Afghanistan. Kandahar is one of the
4 provinces in Afghanistan.
5 So Fawwaz and others who are involved in the
6 conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals are getting communications
7 from Mohamed Atef in Kandahar, Afghanistan from the number
8 837655. Mohamed Atef is assigned this number, according to
9 Khalid al Fawwaz, and that number, the satellite phone number.
10 It also appears in the Casio of somebody by the name
11 of Ibrahim Eidarous. There are three people in London, ladies
12 and gentlemen, who were part of the conspiracy to murder U.S.
13 nationals. Eidarous, Government Exhibit 129, is his picture
14 with his aliases. Ibrahim Daoud Abu Abdulla, he's the cell
15 leader for EIJ, that joint venture group I mentioned by
16 Zawahiri in London, and he's got a listing in his Casio.
17 If you take a look at Abu Abdallah. Now, Abu
18 Abdallah, you will remember from Government Exhibit 4-1, is
19 one of the aliases for Usama Bin Laden, and you see how he's
20 got it listed there is Abu Abdallah, "at" sign, "at" sign,
21 "at" sign, this is an important number, and what's the number
22 he's got: 873682505331.
23 So the cell leader for EIJ has got this number,
24 Khalid al Fawwaz, one of the al Qaeda members who was in
25 Nairobi and in London has got the number, and Wadih El Hage
5290
1 has the number. And the number is ascribed in these address
2 books to either Abu Hafs or Bin Laden.
3 How else do you know? Well, because the phone was
4 actually purchased through this person Ziyad Khalil by Khalid
5 al Fawwaz, who was one of the critical members in this
6 conspiracy.
7 Government Exhibit 1626D, and this is a security
8 report that is prepared by Khalid al Fawwaz, and if you take a
9 look, this is actually found on his computer. If you take a
10 look down at the bottom there, it has been highlighted for
11 you, he's telling the group what it is that needs to get done.
12 And what he says on the administrative issues, in order to
13 solve the problem of communication, it is indispensable to buy
14 the satellite phone. And Fawwaz is going to act as the
15 quintessential facilitator and he's going to purchase the
16 phone.
17 If we could take a look at Government Exhibit 593,
18 which is among the many invoices for the minutes that were
19 purchased for the phone, remember you have to purchase the
20 minutes in advance, and what this is, this is correspondence
21 from Marilyn Morelli, the person who testified, to Ziyad
22 Khaleel. And you see the date there, May 8, 1997, and she's
23 responding to his request for the purchase of minutes. And
24 she explains, here are the instructions.
25 And 593 contains another piece of paper, 593-4, which
5291
1 is the actual invoice itself, and she told you this is what
2 gets sent out. You see M circled there and the date, you see
3 597, and it says add minutes transaction order, and down at
4 the bottom are the numbers you need to activate the phone to
5 use the minutes.
6 Let's put that, if we could, on the left side of the
7 screen. The document on the left side of the screen is in the
8 business records of Ogara Satellite Networks. It's a copy of
9 the minutes invoice that is sent from Ogara to this person
10 Ziyad Khaleel. On the right, Government Exhibit 1625, what
11 you have now before you is Government Exhibit 1625.
12 Government Exhibit 1625 is a copy of the minutes invoice that
13 is found in Khalid al Fawwaz' house when the Scotland Yard
14 officer searched it in 1998, and it's the May 8, 1997 purchase
15 of minutes.
16 So Ziyad Khaleel purchases the minutes on May 7 and
17 he sends it to Khalid al Fawwaz in London, and we'll go
18 through the records and you know that this is in Khalid al
19 Fawwaz's phone because, among other reasons, the phone is
20 constantly calling Khalid al Fawwaz's home number in London.
21 And we'll go through that in second.
22 If we could take a look, though, at Government
23 Exhibit 1633, this is another document found in Khalid al
24 Fawwaz's house in London. You see there it's a letter, short
25 letter from Khalid al Fawwaz dated June 3, because remember,
5292
1 they transpose the numbers in Europe, June 3, 1997. "Dear
2 Brother Ziyad: As for the transferred money, the bank assured
3 me that the money was withdrawn on 27/5/97," May 27, "a week
4 ago, and they told me that the money will be in your account
5 during this period," etc., etc., etc.
6 So Khalid purchases the minutes on May 7, he sends
7 the invoice to al Fawwaz, al Fawwaz reimburses him on May 27,
8 and he's telling Ziyad Khalil, I sent you the money, you'll
9 get it.
10 How else do you know that this is the phone that is
11 used by Bin Laden and others in Afghanistan? Well, at some
12 point in 1998 Ziyad Khalil puts a purchase order in for a
13 battery pack to Ogara. If we pull up Government Exhibit 593,
14 this is one of the documents that Marilyn Morelli testified
15 about.
16 This is an invoice from Ogara, and you see on the top
17 left there, "Customer: Ziyad Khalil," and you see that what
18 he is purchasing is the ultra light power supply and the 12VDC
19 mini battery charger. Only Ziyad Khalil does not have it sent
20 to him, he asked, ship to, Tariq Hamdi in Herndon, Virginia.
21 Now, if we pull up Government Exhibit 1621, this is
22 another document found in Khalid al Fawwaz' house in London.
23 By the way, his address is 94 Dewsbury Road, London, England.
24 We'll talk about that a little later on.
25 This is a letter from ABC News from Christopher
5293
1 Isham, a senior producer at ABC News, to Mr. S. Rashid. This
2 is found in Khalid al Fawwaz's house. The first line of the
3 letter reads, "As per our conversations with Tarik Hamdi in
4 Washington, I am confirming our interest in interviewing Mr.
5 Bin Laden for ABC News." So the person to whom the battery
6 pack is getting shipped is working with ABC News to arrange an
7 interview with Bin Laden.
8 And you see the date by the way of the letter, they
9 are trying to arrange to interview April 2, 1998, and the
10 battery pack request comes in on May 11, 1998. So what
11 happens? Government Exhibit 1612 -- maybe we can try the
12 left/right thing again and put this on the left and on the
13 right, if we can try the translation.
14 What you have here is another document found in
15 Khalid al Fawwaz's house in London, and what you see is the
16 document on the left is a fax page from the Islamabad Marriott
17 Hotel, Islamabad City in Pakistan. That's not too far from
18 Afghanistan. It's in the northwest part of Pakistan.
19 And Tariq Hamdi, see it says "a message to Khalid,"
20 and that number 441812084423, that's Khalid al Fawwaz' fax
21 number. And you know that from the telephone records that are
22 in evidence. And it's from Tariq and you see the date on the
23 fax at the top, 17 May 1998. Actually he writes it there, May
24 17, 1998. And what he says is, "Brother Khalid: Peace be
25 upon you. We arrived safely and now we are in the Marriott
5294
1 Hotel and its address is," and he gives the address.
2 So here is the chronology: Ziyad Khalil requests the
3 battery pack on May 11, 1998, on May 17, 1998, and he asks
4 that it be sent to Tariq Hamdi. On May 11, 1998, Tariq Hamdi
5 is getting the battery pack for the telephone number
6 6825053316789. That's May 11. May 17, Tariq Hamdi is in
7 Islamabad on behalf of ABC News and he tells Khalid al Fawwaz
8 we are in Islamabad and we are fine.
9 And you know from a stipulation that on May 28, 1998,
10 ABC News interviewed Bin Laden in Afghanistan. So the battery
11 pack goes from Ziyad Khalil requesting it to shipping it to
12 Tariq Hamdi, to Tariq Hamdi going to Pakistan, and then
13 Afghanistan, where he delivers the battery pack for the phone.
14 And the intermediary in all of this is Khalid al
15 Fawwaz, because he's the guy whose paying Ziyad Khalil for the
16 minutes and he's the guy who arranges for the interview with
17 ABC News and he is the guy getting the message from Tariq
18 Hamdi, the person who delivers the packet.
19 Now, if we take a look at Government Exhibit 218A-T2,
20 this is one of intercepted telephone conversations in Kenya,
21 and this is a conversation between El Hage and Harun, the same
22 Harun who told Kherchtou he is in Somalia, the same Harun who
23 you are going to see is going to be a major participant in the
24 bombing of the embassy in Nairobi.
25 They are talking about other topics, and then El Hage
5295
1 switches the conversation. "Listen," he says, "Dr. Atef."
2 Now we're back to the doctor, just like Dr. Mohamed Atef in
3 Khalid al Fawwaz's address book. "Yeah," says Harun. "He
4 moved the clinic," says El Hage. "Yeah," says Harun. "He
5 moved the clinic." And then El Hage says, "For this reason
6 his phone was disconnected."
7 And then El Hage says cryptically, "If you want to
8 take your family, wife there, take this phone number." And if
9 we go down to the bottom of the page, the phone number that El
10 Hage gives to Harun, he says, "Write down 873682," and then he
11 stops and he says another number and he gives him the rest of
12 the number, 505331, and he goes on to tell him "and put the
13 two numbers together." So 873682, and then puts the numbers
14 together with 505331.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, you know that Dr. Mohamed Atef
16 is not a doctor and he doesn't have a clinic and Harun isn't
17 taking his family to Dr. Atef's clinic. This is El Hage
18 passing the very carefully forwarded telephone number for Bin
19 Laden in Afghanistan.
20 And what's interesting about this satellite phone, if
21 we take a look at Government Exhibit 594, which is effectively
22 the phone bill but what they call it is minutes used, and you
23 see the first three calls there are to numbers in the United
24 States. The top one is to Ogara Satellite Networks, the other
25 two are 573.
5296
1 And then you see on November 20, if we could just go
2 on to November 20 on down, those are the first calls that are
3 made from the satellite phone outside the United States. The
4 very first number called, November 20, is Khalid al Fawwaz'
5 number, 2084411. Again, from telephone records you know that
6 that's his number at 94 Dewsbury Road.
7 The second one is to another number in London. The
8 third one, 249, is the country code for Sudan. And Government
9 Exhibit 98 gives you the country codes for the countries. And
10 the fourth number called by the satellite phone, 2542820067,
11 which is the number for Wadih El Hage in Nairobi, Kenya and
12 it's called again that same day, November 23.
13 Now, the satellite phone is used by Bin Laden and
14 it's used by Abu Hafs, but it's also used by Ayman al
15 Zawahiri, the leader of EIJ. If we take a look at Government
16 Exhibit 1523-T, T2, what that is, ladies and gentlemen, this
17 is a letter to Abu Abdallah. This is a letter found, by the
18 way, in the trunk of Eidarous' car -- remember, "the boot" the
19 Scotland Yard officer called it -- the trunk of Eidarous' car.
20 And one of the aliases for Eidarous, Abu Abdallah, which is
21 not the Abu Abdallah that Wadih El Hage is known by, a
22 different Abu Abdallah. Abu Abdallah says -- he has a series
23 of things he tells him. He says, please call telephone number
24 956375892.
25 Now, that telephone number, we'll talk a little bit
5297
1 more about it later, happens to be the telephone number for
2 the third guy in London to keep an eye on, somebody by the
3 name of Adel Abdel Bary. There's three people in London.
4 Khalid al Fawwaz, Ibrahim Eidarous, and this person, Adel
5 Abdel Bary, and those are the only three in London we're going
6 to talk about. I promise. And that's the number for Adel
7 Abdel Bary, whose another person EIJ in London. And there it
8 is, Eidarous asking on October 29, 1997 to Zawahiri, please
9 call this number.
10 Now, if we go to Government Exhibit 594-9, which
11 again is the invoice for the minutes used on the satellite
12 phone, and we go to October 30, the day after Eidarous writes
13 this letter to Zawahiri, you will see five telephone calls to
14 that number. 44 is the country code for England, 956375892.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, that phone is the Jihad phone
16 in this case. It is the phone that is used by the
17 headquarters people in Afghanistan when the group leaves Sudan
18 and goes to Afghanistan. And who they call on that phone and
19 who has that number tells you a great, great deal about the
20 activities of the people in this case.
21 Remember, Wadih El Hage has the phone number and he
22 passes it on to Harun. Khalid al Fawwaz who helps buy the
23 phone, he has the number. Eidarous, the person who runs the
24 EIJ cell in London, he has the phone. And where you are going
25 to see Eidarous and that other person Adel Abdel Bary, and why
5298
1 I asked you to keep your eye on them, they're going to be
2 involved in disseminating the claims of responsibility for the
3 bombings, the claims that you saw that were found at The
4 Grapevine office in the Beethoven Street office in London,
5 that's their office.
6 And that's the phone that Bin Laden and the other
7 coconspirators are going to use to communicate to carry out
8 their conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals. It's the phone,
9 you are going to see shortly, that they use to communicate the
10 fatwah in February of 1998 that says kill all American
11 civilians, and it's the phone that they're going to use to try
12 to rescue the defendant Mohamed Al-'Owhali when he is stuck in
13 Nairobi with no passport and no money after the bombing.
14 Like I said, it is that phone that gives you a window
15 into how it is that al Qaeda operates.
16 What else happens in 1996? Well, that is the year,
17 according to Al-'Owhali's statement that he gave to the FBI,
18 that Al-'Owhali gets to Afghanistan. That is the year that
19 Mohamed Al-'Owhali gets his al Qaeda training and he's trained
20 in explosives, hijacking, kidnapping, assassination, and
21 intelligence. And after this training, he told the agent, he
22 gets to have an audience with Usama Bin Laden. And he asks
23 Bin Laden for a mission and the mission that you know that he
24 carries out on August 7th of 1998.
25 The other thing that happens in 1996, Wadih El Hage
5299
1 helps to facilitate the delivery of fake passports. One of
2 the people that Kherchtou told you who was in the EIJ group
3 was somebody by the name of Ahmed Hassan, and you're going to
4 see later on in Government Exhibit I believe it's 1518 a
5 letter where Ayman Zawahiri appoints Ahmad Hassan as one of
6 the deputies of EIJ.
7 And if we take a look at Government Exhibit 304 --
8 okay, we can pull up 1518. That's a good idea. This is a
9 letter I mentioned to you. This is found again in the boot,
10 the trunk of Eidarous' car, and it's from Abu Mohamed Nur
11 Al-Deen, one of the aliases for Zawahiri, and it's dated
12 January 18, 1997. It says, "It's important for me to tell you
13 that I choose the brothers," and he lists the people. And "D"
14 you see "Ahmad Hassan for communications and secretariat." So
15 he is appointing this person as one of the deputies within
16 EIJ.
17 Now, next, if we go to Government Exhibit 304, again
18 the pop-up phone book that's found in El Hage's house, and you
19 see a reference there to a Dardaa, Liby, 955769. And in the
20 same book at page 25, you see a reference to Saad and there's
21 a number there, 999412989965, and then the number again
22 955769. And 994 is the country code for Azerbaijan. And you
23 can barely see it on this map up here. Up here it's north of
24 Iran and that's the country code for Azerbaijan.
25 Now, a few other things that are found -- by the way,
5300
1 if you take a look, if you take a look at Government Exhibit
2 594, the second page, and this is minutes used on the
3 satellite phone, on December 5, 1996, you see a phone call to
4 that number 99412989965, one of the numbers that El Hage has
5 listed for Saad in Azerbaijan. If we take a look at
6 Government Exhibit 624J-T, and this is one of the letters
7 that's found in El Hage's files -- not in his house, but in
8 the office, a search that took place in August of 1998 -- and
9 it's a letter to Harun dated October 23, 1996 and it's signed
10 DRDDA, and it's got ASHRAF in parentheses and he puts Mont
11 Carlo at the bottom.
12 He tells Harun, "I received your letter, and thank
13 God everyone is all right." He says, "Regarding Suleiman, he
14 and Abdel Hadi traveled to and they arrived safely, although
15 Suleiman was delayed a little bit because of the working
16 contract he had at the airport."
17 Then he says, "Regarding the Saudi Arabia, please
18 change the picture of the office only, nothing else. About
19 myself, please raise the salary because I heard it is $75 and
20 this is not enough. Regarding the married people, please let
21 them keep their papers with them. Regarding Brother Nabil, he
22 needs to change the office's picture and put the office
23 picture which Basil Nabil sent to you. Change the name of
24 office to the name Zuhair Shahan Kulayb. Clean the office and
25 take care of it. Place the golden design, the Yemeni or the
5301
1 Turkish."
2 That is a recipe for a fake passport. "Place the
3 golden design, the Yemeni or the Turkish."
4 "Please change the picture of the office only
5 regarding the Saudi Arabia."
6 "DRDAA and ASHRAF is asking Harun to do what
7 Kherchtou told you Harun does for al Qaeda -- he makes fake
8 passports, the lifeblood, as I mentioned earlier, of al Qaeda.
9 And among the documents that are found among El Hage's files
10 are Government Exhibits 623, a passport.
11 This is an Egyptian passport. Government Exhibit
12 631, this one is a Yemeni passport. Government Exhibit 634,
13 this is a stamp, a travel stamp for Kenya. And then on the
14 computer, Government Exhibit 300, it's found in El Hage's
15 house, remember, is Government Exhibit 300F.
16 And remember Agent Crisalli, he was the computer
17 expert who told you that there was this Adobe function that
18 allows you to scan in that image and then you can manipulate
19 it, he said you can change it.
20 Government Exhibit 300G, another stamp, a Kenya
21 travel stamp, and then 300H. This one has a translation that
22 tells you it's from Yemen. It's an exit stamp from Yemen.
23 All the tools of the fake passport trade.
24 But there are telephone calls that go with that
25 letter. If we take a look at Government Exhibit 201A-T, this
5302
1 is a telephone call on October 3, 1996. Remember that letter
2 was in October 1996, and the participants in that conversation
3 are Saad and Harun. And after the greetings, Saad says:
4 "Listen. Listen to me. I found the office. I found the
5 office. I found the office, but nothing has arrived yet.
6 Nothing has arrived yet. Do you understand?" And Harun says:
7 "Yes." And Saad says: "Do you have anything new? Do you
8 have anything new?" And Harun says: "There is nothing new.
9 We are still waiting on news and letters which we haven't
10 received." So there, on October 3, Saad is wondering if he
11 has anything new.
12 Government's Exhibits 202A-T, this is a telephone
13 conversation between Harun and Ahmad Hassan, the EIJ member.
14 What Harun says, again after the greetings, if we go to the
15 next page and down at the bottom, Harun says: "Saad sends his
16 regards to you. I know...his telephone number was probably
17 busy...to send him a fax. I will give you his number. He
18 asked for you." And then Harun says: "He sent me a fax and
19 he said: Is his family with you or with him? I told him
20 his...your family is with the people over there." And then he
21 proceeds to give him a telephone number in Baku.
22 We can go to the next page, and he goes ahead and he
23 gives him that telephone number in Baku. And down at the
24 bottom, which has been cut off, there's a reference to the
25 name of Saad.
5303
1 Now if we go to Government Exhibit 204A-T, what you
2 see here, this is a call November 6, 1996, and El Hage is
3 talking to DHL because he forgot to put an important letter in
4 a package and he wants to know if he can get it back. And
5 then what happens is DHL calls El Hage back later on that day
6 on November 6 and tells him that he can pick up the package.
7 Six days later, as we know from Government Exhibit
8 205A-T, which is a conversation on November 12, and this is El
9 Hage talking to Saif al Islam, as you can see there, and if we
10 can go to the second page and you see down there at the
11 bottom, "I was waiting to get notebooks here." Saif al Islam
12 is waiting to get the notebooks, and one of the codes you
13 learned about was "books" is the code for passports.
14 In 207C-T, which is a conversation on December 17,
15 '96, again involving Wadih El Hage and Wadih El Hage and this
16 person Saad in Baku. Saad says: "Concerning Abu al-Darda',
17 have you sent him the notebook?" El Hage says: "Yes, a long
18 time ago, but they never told us whether they had received it
19 or not."
20 Remember, Dardaa is the person whose name appears in
21 El Hage's address book. Dardaa is the person who sends the
22 letter to Harun that talks about the Yemeni and the Turkish
23 and the gold seal. And you know "the books" are used as code
24 for passports, and Saad says: "Did you send him anything else
25 with it for Suhail and the other?" For the other people did
5304
1 you send the passports. And El Hage says: "Yes, yes, it was
2 with it, but we didn't do anything to them." So El Hage is
3 distinguishing what he did with some of the passports but not
4 with all of the passports.
5 And then Saad asks: "What about the green one? Did
6 you do anything to it?" And you see in the passports, they
7 come in different colors, and El Hage says: "Oh, let me
8 think. It's been a while. Let me ask Harun about it because
9 I remember he said it was better not to do anything to it,
10 otherwise, the projects would get ruined."
11 So El Hage and Harun are working together to fix some
12 of these passports and Saad goes on to say: "So regarding Abu
13 al Dardaa's, it had been fixed and sent then?" And El Hage
14 says: "Yes." El Hage says: Abu al Dardaa's is fine and
15 fixed, and we sent it to him." Again, Wadih El Hage is acting
16 as the facilitator on behalf of al Qaeda to make sure, working
17 behind the scenes, that the essentials that need to get done
18 get down on behalf of al Qaeda.
19 Now, we get to 1997. In 1997, ladies and gentlemen,
20 you are going to remember that there were two trips that El
21 Hage took to see Usama Bin Laden, and the first one takes
22 place in February 1997. And bear in mind, this is five or six
23 months after Bin Laden has publicly declared war on the United
24 States, after he says that all resources should be pooled to
25 kill the United States, to drive the American forces out of
5305
1 Saudi Arabia. And in spite of the denials that El Hage will
2 give to the Grand Jury, the evidence overwhelmingly shows that
3 El Hage went to Afghanistan. He went to Afghanistan to visit
4 with Bin Laden and Abu Hafs. We can go through that evidence
5 right now.
6 First, on January 29, 1997, as we know from
7 Government Exhibit 594, again this is the minutes used on that
8 satellite phone, there is a call from the satellite phone on
9 January 29 to 25471202219. That is the mobile phone that El
10 Hage uses, and you know 254 is the country code for Kenya.
11 On February 3, 1997, there are telephone calls from
12 that mobile number, and we know that from the mobile phone
13 records. And so you know, those are Government Exhibit 621C.
14 There is a call from the mobile phone to the number 521272177.
15 And if we go to the pop-up phone book, Government Exhibit
16 304-27, you see that that number I just read to you, 21272177,
17 is listed for Taysir, and Taysir is one of the names that El
18 Hage is going to use for Abu Hafs. And we'll go through that
19 some more. So the satellite phone calls El Hage on January
20 29. El Hage calls back on February 7 to Taysir, Abu Hafs, on
21 February 3.
22 And by the way, you see that number also appear in
23 the planner that's found in El Hage's house, Government
24 Exhibit 350. In the lower right there, Taysir, Box 35341,
25 272177.
5306
1 On January 30, and we don't have to pull up the
2 records, but the satellite phone calls 820067. That's the
3 land line at Fedha Estates that belongs to El Hage.
4 Then, on January 30, there is a call that is
5 intercepted and it's the transcript containing Government
6 Exhibit 209A-T. And it's call from Abu Khadija, and we know
7 that Abu Khadija is one of the aliases for Abu Hafs. That's
8 in Government Exhibit 4-2, I believe. And that conversation
9 involves Abu Khadija, Abu Hafs and April El Hage. And Abu
10 Khadija asks: "Is he," referring to Abu Hafs, "present."
11 April says: "He is notice present. He is out. He may come
12 after two hours." And so he leaves a message.
13 What you know from Government Exhibit 209B-T, which I
14 won't play to you, is a series of outgoing calls between about
15 2:47 in the afternoon and 3:22 in the afternoon. This call
16 from Khadija takes place at 2:47 in the afternoon. So right
17 after April El Hage hangs up, she's dialing and she's getting
18 a busy signal. And she keeps redialing and getting a busy
19 signal for almost a half an hour.
20 She knows the call is important. She knows Abu Hafs
21 is calling for El Hage and she's trying to get the message to
22 him that Abu Hafs wants to speak to you. So on Government
23 Exhibit 209C-T, at 3:22, April El Hage finally gets through to
24 Wadih El Hage. And she reaches him and she says -- there are
25 these greetings back and forth, and she says way down at the
5307
1 bottom, "Ah...he came back. Ahmad never came back. And Abu
2 Khadija called. He is going to call you back in two hours."
3 And if we go to the next page, El Hage says: "Okay,
4 I should be home soon." April says: "By four...four, five."
5 They go back and forth. And when he says: "Ah, that's too
6 early," she says: "It is the other one." And El Hage says:
7 "Who?" And she says: "The other one."
8 This is the other Abu Khadija she is referring to,
9 this is the important Abu Khadija, and she has to distinguish
10 that because there is another Abu Khadija who El Hage keeps in
11 touch with and we'll receive conversations belonging him.
12 That Khadija lives in Germany, but this Khadija, the other
13 one, the one calling using the satellite phone, he is in
14 Afghanistan and April El Hage wants to make sure that Wadih El
15 Hage gets the message.
16 So how do you know he left? In addition to these
17 calls that precede his trip on February 3, 1997, again looking
18 at the mobile telephone records, the mobile telephone shows
19 another call to that number 272177. And then on -- and we
20 won't display this now, but Government Exhibit 210A-T is a
21 conversation on February 4, 1997. It's about 5 in the
22 afternoon, and El Hage says that he is at the Executive
23 Guesthouse and he says it's 71E Abdara Road. And he gives the
24 phone number, 842593, and, "In case they call, tell them this
25 is the Executive Guesthouse."
5308
1 And then he says: "Yeah, the telephone you gave me
2 the other day is always closed. I get recorded messages that
3 says that it is off." And what you know from the minutes
4 records for the satellite phone is that the satellite phone
5 has no calls during this time. There's something wrong.
6 Maybe Ziyad Khalil hasn't gotten the minutes, maybe the phone
7 is broken, maybe it needs a battery pack, but there are no
8 calls if you look at the records on 594 for that time period.
9 And you know from Government Exhibit 646, this is one
10 of the documents found in El Hage's files in the Mira Office
11 in 1998, and you see the Executive Guesthouse, just like he
12 tells Harun. At the bottom it says 71E Abdara Road and the
13 phone number, and the place he is staying at, ladies and
14 gentlemen, is in Peshawar.
15 Remember Mohamed Ali Odeh, the gem salesman, he was
16 asked, Do you remember about El Hage going to Pakistan
17 February 1997? He said, Yes, I do. He specifically was
18 asked, Do you remember him going to Peshawar? And he said,
19 No. And Peshawar is that border town we talked about earlier.
20 That's where Kherchtou got his surveillance training. It's
21 right on the Afghanistan border.
22 And you know from the telephone conversations between
23 El Hage and his deputy, Harun, and from the document 646 that
24 El Hage is right at the border of Afghanistan, staying at a
25 hotel waiting to cross the border and to meet with the al
5309
1 Qaeda leadership.
2 Government Exhibit 211A-T, this is now a conversation
3 three days later, after El Hage tells Harun that he is in
4 Peshawar, February 7, 1997. And this is an outgoing call you
5 see there from El Hage's phone to the number 451257. Just so
6 you know, Government Exhibit 636A shows that that number is
7 listed to a Must, M-U-S-T, and it's crossed out in the
8 listing.
9 And then 636B, which is, by the way, records found
10 among El Hage's files in the Mira Office in Nairobi in 1998,
11 shows another listing for 451257 for Mustafa, and that
12 Mustafa, ladies and gentlemen, is the Mustafa that's Khalid.
13 That's the person who met Kherchtou when he got to Nairobi,
14 that's the al Qaeda member who is going to carry out the
15 bombing in Dar es Salaam.
16 And if we take a look after the greetings, what Harun
17 says, if we could go to -- well, I'll read out for you and
18 we'll also talk about the Ali Odeh reference, Harun says: A
19 few days ago, your friend over there had called, the big one,
20 he said your friend had arrived, he is with me now. He said
21 don't worry and that he took him to the hotel. He's talking
22 about a conversation he had referring to El Hage and the big
23 one, and they are meeting over precisely where they are
24 supposed to be meeting in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.
25 Now, later on in this conversation they talk about
5310
1 how somebody wanted to use El Hage's phone, and Harun is
2 telling Mustafa that he wouldn't let him use the phone. And
3 Harun makes a specific reference to the fact that the person
4 who wanted to use the phone had a business with him, referring
5 to El Hage, and he said, "He's the guy that has the head
6 letter."
7 And you will remember that Mohamed Ali Odeh talked
8 about that Black Giant idea that they had, and he was asked
9 questions about the letterhead and he said, "You mean the head
10 letter? The idea, the company that really was just an idea."
11 And remember when he was asked about any confrontations he had
12 with Harun about using the phone and how angry he got about
13 Harun? He said Harun was rude and that Mohamed Ali Odeh was
14 respected.
15 Mustafa and Harun are talking about they don't want
16 Mohamed Ali Odeh, the businessman, using that cell phone
17 because that cell phone is to be reserved for al Qaeda
18 business. It is not to be used to call Hong Kong to get gems.
19 And that underscores a point, ladies and gentlemen, precisely
20 what I mentioned to you at the beginning.
21 What the evidence shows is that Wadih El Hage may
22 very well have been involved in a gem business with people
23 like Mohamed Ali Odeh, but he carries on that side of his life
24 while at the same time carrying on the different life, the
25 secret life, the al Qaeda life, so that people like Mohamed
5311
1 Ali Odeh have no idea that El Hage in fact is not selling gems
2 in Pakistan in February 19967, that people like Mohamed Ali
3 Odeh have no idea that El Hage is in Peshawar and he is going
4 to meet with Bin Laden and Abu Hafs and that people like
5 Mohamed Ali Odeh have no idea why they can't use the mobile
6 phone.
7 And that conversation between two al Qaeda members,
8 between two people who are participating in the bombings of
9 the embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam underscore the
10 point, they make the contrast for you, and that it is not to
11 the exclusion of doing al Qaeda business that one can engage
12 in other commercial transactions.
13 And the other thing that happens in that conversation
14 is that the two of them, Harun and Fadhl, talk about a number
15 that they got at Marwan's house. And again, Marwan is one of
16 the aliases for the defendant Mohamed Odeh, as Kherchtou told
17 you.
18 Now, while El Hage is meeting with the bosses in al
19 Qaeda, Harun is making sure he keeps people informed.
20 Government Exhibit 211B-T is a conversation on February 7th,
21 and it takes place within an hour after Harun speaks to
22 Mustafa.
23 If we could display 211B-T -- I'm sorry, C-T. What
24 happens there, this person Shuaib, who was one of the people
25 you heard about earlier on, is giving Harun a number and he's
5312
1 going to call him back. That's what's in 211C-T. And then
2 you see the two of them talking. And then if we can go to the
3 next page, if we can go to the next page -- I'm sorry, the
4 page after that, if we go halfway down, Harun says to Shuaib:
5 "We want to come, but as you know, the director is not
6 present," referring to El Hage. And Shuaib says: "Present,
7 huh?" Harun says: "No, he's not present." And Shuaib says,
8 "When will he come?" And Harun says: "This is the Eid (the
9 holiday) as they said. He is not present, in other words. He
10 doesn't know, however the man, the X, that one, he may."
11 And then Shuaib says: "However, the director on your
12 end traveled, right?" And then Harun says: "No, he left, he
13 traveled." And Shuaib says: "He arrived at the people's
14 place." And Harun says: "He arrived since Sunday. He
15 traveled and arrived at the people's place and the big boss
16 contacted him and told him: 'The man is with me here.'"
17 The people's place, and you will see this same
18 reference, is Afghanistan, and "the people" is the other
19 people in al Qaeda who are in Afghanistan. And of course, the
20 big boss is Bin Laden. And Harun is sharing the news with
21 Shuaib so he can be kept up to date.
22 And you will see the same thing happen in Government
23 Exhibit 211D-T, which is another conversation on February 7,
24 1997, and this one takes place about four minutes after Harun
25 and Shuaib get off the phone. This is a conversation between
5313
1 Harun and the defendant Odeh, the alias Marwan, and then Harun
2 says, and this is on the second page of the transcript: "Your
3 friend from Malindi has just contacted me," referring to
4 Shuaib because he just got off the phone with Shuaib. Marwan
5 said: "By God." Harun said: "Yes." Marwan says: "What is
6 he saying? Harun said: "He says that he is fine. He wanted
7 to know your --" Marwan says: "Yes, indeed. Finish. It's
8 for sure," etc.
9 Then what he says is, if we go to the next page,
10 Marwan says: "With God's permission." And they go on and on,
11 and then down about three-quarters of the way down, Marwan
12 says: "So, what's the news with you? Is there anything new?"
13 And Harun says: "No, what's new is that, my friend arrived
14 there. My friend arrived there." And Marwan says: "Yes."
15 And Harun says: "The director had called me two days before."
16 Marwan says: "Yes." And Harun says: "He told me that the
17 guest is with him, in other words, he came to him, to his
18 house, in other words." Marwan says: "The news is perfect."
19 And Harun says: "Yes, the news and everything else are
20 perfect." And then they talk about the guest. So, again,
21 Harun is sharing the news with the other people in the group
22 about El Hage's visit.
23 Government Exhibit 212A-T is a conversation between
24 El Hage and Harun, and El Hage says -- and these are the
25 greetings. If we go to the next page, down towards the
5314
1 bottom, El Hage says: "Thank God. If God willing there is
2 good news when I return." And Harun says: "Okay, where is
3 your friend? Will he come along with you before you?" And El
4 Hage says: "He will come after me. He will be late a bit."
5 And then what happens is, if we could go to the next
6 page -- on that page, by the way, you see about a quarter of
7 the way down, if we could do the first half of the page, you
8 see Harun say about halfway down there: "I don't know. He
9 will not travel. People have been calling him from Hong Kong,
10 Jordan and so on."
11 There's the reference to Mohamed Ali Odeh and its
12 relates back to the conversation that Harun had with Mustafa
13 Fadhl complaining about Mohamed Ali Odeh using the phone.
14 Elsewhere in the conversation what El Hage says to Harun is
15 that "the people send you their regards, the people here are
16 very comfortable, very comfortable. If God willing, we will
17 all go to them."
18 Again, "the people" is the al Qaeda people that are
19 in Afghanistan and they are very comfortable, which is a theme
20 that you will see El Hage will talk about again and it's in a
21 letter to the other Abu Khadija I mentioned. "If God willing,
22 we will all go to them." So El Hage is talking about his
23 connection, his meetings with the people in the Afghanistan
24 headquarters and he's talking to Harun that he's going to
25 bring back good news upon return from his trip and hopefully
5315
1 one day they will all join the people.
2 Now, when El Hage gets back, there's a telephone call
3 that takes place on February 21, 1997, and it's contained in
4 Government Exhibit 213A-T. If we can go to the next page,
5 what I will do, ladies and gentlemen -- you, of course, are
6 free to look at all these at the end and during your
7 deliberations -- what this conversation involves is this is
8 Wadih El Hage speaking to Marwan, again the defendant Odeh,
9 and what happens is they discuss a routine where they give a
10 number and they call it back. You see it in some of the other
11 conversations.
12 And Odeh and El Hage talk about somebody coming from
13 Odeh to meet El Hage who wants to know if that somebody is
14 bringing the computer, but is told by Odeh that he's bringing
15 the diskettes. And El Hage asks Odeh how his work is going,
16 and then he says that he will get the information from
17 Mustafa, implying that Mustafa is the person who is on his way
18 up.
19 So El Hage gets back from his trip to see the boss,
20 the big boss in Afghanistan. He speaks to the defendant Odeh,
21 who talks about how somebody is coming up, and in all
22 likelihood Mustafa, and there is reference to diskettes. And
23 you will see, ladies and gentlemen, as we go through the
24 evidence that these diskettes will contain information that
25 reveal what the good news was. What it is that El Hage brings
5316
1 back is a policy from Bin Laden from al Qaeda, a policy that
2 is going to dictate what the East African cell of al Qaeda is
3 going to do next as part of its operations for al Qaeda.
4 Now, if we go to Government Exhibit 310-73A-T, this
5 is one of the computer disks that is found in El Hage's house
6 by Agent Coleman during the search in 1997, and this has the
7 new policy. "Number 1. The return of Wadih and the meeting
8 with Khaled."
9 "Wadih" is Wadih El Hage and Khaled is one of the
10 aliases for Mustafa Fadhl, one of the people who is involved.
11 This is Mustafa Fadhl, and Kherchtou tells you that he goes by
12 the name Khaled.
13 "2. The preparations of travel to the interior.
14 "3. The meeting of Khalid with some Somali officials
15 before the entry.
16 "4. The entry/move of Khalid then Harun via land.
17 "5. The entry/move of Marwan with Shuaib via sea,"
18 and
19 "6. The situation in the interior."
20 And then down at the bottom, "meeting Khalid with the
21 officials in the interior/meeting with the Arab young men in
22 the interior/sessions on work arrangement in the
23 interior/sessions on arrangement of the course."
24 The new policy is brought back. There is a meeting
25 where El Hage shares it with Khaled, with Mustafa Fadhl. They
5317
1 make preparations, Khaled, Harun, Marwan. The defendant Odeh
2 and Shuaib are going to carry out this new policy that El Hage
3 has brought back, summarized for you in bullet-point form as
4 it was contained in the disk when found by Agent Coleman.
5 Now, you see a little bit more about what this policy
6 is in Government Exhibit 310-74A-T. This is a document that's
7 found on a different disk, once again found in Wadih El Hage's
8 house in 1997. And you see at the top the writer of this
9 report says that the report is top secret, and it's from
10 Khaled Sheik and it's to the officials in the administration.
11 Khaled Sheik, another reference to Mustafa Fadhl, the person
12 who he meets with El Hage who brings back the report, and it's
13 a report that's going to update the administration about the
14 activities of the group carrying out the report.
15 If you take a look at the very first paragraph,
16 "Report on the Latest News in Somalia," it says just above
17 that, the first point there, "Abdel Sabbur brings to light the
18 new policy." Ladies and gentlemen, Abdel Sabbur is one of the
19 aliases for the defendant El Hage. And it says, "When Abdel
20 Sabbur arrived on 22/2/1997, he contacted Khaled directly and
21 asked him to come to Nairobi."
22 Remember the conversation between Odeh and El Hage
23 where Odeh says, yes, he is coming to you and he will bring
24 the diskettes, that document tells you that in fact what Odeh
25 and El Hage were talking about was Khaled coming to Nairobi to
5318
1 meet with El Hage when he returns with new policy.
2 The document goes on. When he arrived and met with
3 Abdel Sabbur, he informed him about the status of the young
4 men and the Hajj and that they were fine, and he received from
5 him the trusts (the letters, the money) and he informed him
6 also that the Hajj has a new policy pertaining to the region.
7 Hence, Khaled fully grasped this policy and took the issue
8 seriously. The new policy is (to revive the activism in
9 Somalia) if the expression is correct, and to prepare 300
10 activists before the arrival of the guest, and he informed him
11 that the details of this policy (are) with the guest coming
12 from the Hajj end."
13 A couple points on this paragraph, ladies and
14 gentlemen. The Hajj is Bin Laden, and you know that that is
15 one of the names he goes buy from Kherchtou. Kherchtou told
16 you that without having seen this document.
17 That document confirms that the Hajj is Bin Laden,
18 that Wadih El Hage went to see Bin Laden and that he brought
19 back with him the new policy, things that El Hage will lie
20 about before the Grand Jury in 1997 and 1998.
21 The other thing that this one paragraph tells you is
22 that the new policy was to militarize the situation in East
23 Africa, to militarize the cell that you know is going to carry
24 out the bombing of the embassies in August of 1998.
25 Now, this policy is directed towards the activities
5319
1 in Somalia after the Americans leave. You don't want there to
2 be any misperception about that. This policy is not directed
3 at the Americans yet, but what this shows you is the
4 connection between El Hage and Bin Laden, between El Hage and
5 the headquarters of al Qaeda, how it is that he acts as the
6 facilitator, as the messenger, and as somebody who runs the
7 base of operations in Nairobi, and that he works with people
8 like Mustafa, Fadhl, also known as Khaled, and the defendant
9 Mohamed Odeh, also known as Marwan, and that this has nothing
10 to do with the gem business, the selling of tanzanite or
11 anything like that. This is about militarizing, this is about
12 fulfilling one of the policies that al Qaeda is pursuing, and
13 El Hage is the person who carries out that mission.
14 Now, the second paragraph of this document talks
15 about, if we go down to Khaled Sheik meeting with the
16 engineers, the only point I'll make and then we'll break is in
17 here there's a specific reference to the fact that they
18 appoint -- if you take a look at the sentence that begins
19 with, "Furthermore, he also tried," he referring to Khaled, "a
20 young man who would be in charge of the communication between
21 them and the administration (this young man will be acquainted
22 with the local news and could be moving to them any time
23 soon). Hence, Harun was primarily chosen. However, this
24 matter depends on financial resources."
25 So just remember that in this document, in addition
5320
1 to discussing the new policy, the group decides that Harun
2 will be their communications officer, and we'll talk about the
3 communications he sends out after lunch.
4 THE COURT: All right, ladies and gentlemen, we'll
5 break for lunch and we'll resume at 2:15.
6 We're adjourned until 2:15.
7 (Luncheon recess)
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5321
1 AFTERNOON SESSION
2 2:15 p.m.
3 THE COURT: On May 10 we are going to start at 1:00.
4 We will instruct the jury to have had lunch. I don't know
5 where we will be on May 10, but that is to accommodate a juror
6 so that she can attend her graduation.
7 (Jury present)
8 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, before I forget,
9 let me tell you that on Thursday, May 10 -- that's a week from
10 this Thursday -- we will start at 1:00, and let's have lunch
11 before we come to court. Thursday, the 10th, we will start at
12 1.
13 MR. KARAS: Thank you, your Honor. We left off
14 before lunch discussing Government's Exhibit 310-74AT, which
15 was the top secret report that was written by Khalid, the
16 alias for Mustafa Fadhl. The report discusses a number of
17 things and there are several reference references you will see
18 in there to Abdel Sabbour and the use of the car.
19 At the very end of this report, if you take a look at
20 the top, and we will highlight the paragraph before the
21 section marked Ethiopia, the report says that as for the
22 security situation now inside Kenya, it's somewhat good
23 because everybody is tuned to the issues around them (Zaire,
24 Sudan, etc.) and also the approach of the elections in Kenya
25 make the authorities concerned with the internal issues.
5322
1 So when this report is written, this report that
2 discusses the new policy that Bin Laden brings back, the group
3 considers the security situation in Kenya to be fine.
4 Ladies and gentlemen, I marked that for you because
5 you will see that that situation changes later on in 1997,
6 that the group will perceive that there is a security threat,
7 and what they will perceive is that the source of that threat
8 is the United States. You will see how it is that they react
9 to that threat, which will tell you a great deal about how the
10 members of that conspiracy react.
11 Something else in connection with this new policy in
12 Somalia in 1997. Government's Exhibit 10-96T, which we will
13 display later on, I just want to tell you right now, 710-96 is
14 a tape and the translation is the translation of what amounts
15 to a tape letter. This was found in the defendant Odeh's
16 house in Witu, and it is a series of taped letters from Odeh
17 to his wife while Odeh is in Somalia carrying out the new
18 policy that Bin Laden issued in 1997. What Odeh says in this
19 correspondence is, our goal in Somalia was not limited merely
20 to the training of groups who want to fight and the cause is
21 over. However, our goals are bigger than that. We are not a
22 relief organization which comes every now and then to assist
23 the victims that leave. We are not a relief organization.
24 Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that that is
25 precisely the case when it comes to the core group of people
5323
1 that comprise the essence of this conspiracy, as reflected by
2 the organization that constitutes the core of this conspiracy,
3 Al Qaeda. Remember, it is a group that seeks out informants
4 and it kills them if it thinks they exist. This is a group
5 that if it is not fighting it is training others to fight.
6 Bear in mind that throughout this entire period, the group
7 considers America to be its chief enemy.
8 There are other documents that follow El Hage's trip
9 to Afghanistan that further prove to you what the purpose of
10 the trip was. Government's Exhibit 300B-T is another document
11 found on the computer, Government's Exhibit 300, in El Hage's
12 house by Agent Coleman, and one of the documents in there is
13 this report, an update by Abu Hafs, the military commander, on
14 the Taliban. It is a lengthy report that we read to you
15 during the trial, and I invite you to read it during your
16 deliberations. It basically discusses the relationship
17 between Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are in Afghanistan,
18 which becomes a new home for Al Qaeda in 1996 when Bin Laden
19 issues his call for jihad in August of 1996.
20 One of the other documents that you see is
21 Government's Exhibit 245-T, which is an identical report
22 regarding the Taliban, only this report, which El Hage sends
23 out to at least one Al Qaeda member, does not have Abu Hafs at
24 the bottom. That makes sense, because El Hage isn't going to
25 send out this report and risk the fact that people will see
5324
1 this report and connect it to Abu Hafs, the military commander
2 of Al Qaeda. Remember, the group undertakes efforts to
3 protect the identity of its people and make sure that others
4 don't find out who it is that would be connected to the
5 organization. We will see evidence of El Hage sending this
6 report to Abu Khadija in Germany. Remember I mentioned to you
7 there were two. The Abu Khadija in Germany is somebody that
8 El Hage will communicate with following his seeing Bin Laden
9 in February 1997.
10 Government's Exhibit 632A-T, that is a letter dated
11 February 21, 1997, and it is from El Hage to Abu Suliman. Abu
12 Suliman, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the aliases for Ihab
13 Ali. Remember, another alias is Nawawi. By the way, Nawawi
14 is the copilot with Essam al Ridi when he crashes the Bin
15 Laden plane. Remember, it was El Hage who had al Ridi go up
16 to Khartoum to see about selling the plane in Egypt, and al
17 Ridi took it up for a test run and he took it with this person
18 Ihab Ali, and this is one of the people El Hage is going to
19 lie about in front of the grand jury. This Exhibit 62 tells
20 Ihab Ali that he was on a business trip and met with Dr. Atef.
21 He and his friends say hello to you. That makes perfect
22 sense. The letter is dated on the 21st, right when El Hage
23 gets back from seeing Bin Laden. He is saying hello to Ihab
24 Ali who Kherchtou tells you is an Al Qaeda member. Right
25 after he gets back, El Hage is communicating with others. He
5325
1 does it again on February 24, 1997, in a letter marked
2 Government's Exhibit 632B-T, which we will display. Abu al
3 Sabbour, one of the aliases for Wadih El Hage. It is to
4 brother Abu Khadija. First I would like to congratulate you
5 on the Eid al Fitr because I was not here at the time. I went
6 to visit Haj Abu al Hawai, who says hello. Also, the people
7 who work with him say hello. Actually, their situation over
8 there is very good. They're comfortable, contrary to what we
9 have been hearing or reading in the newspapers and magazines.
10 The landowners are cooperating with them and they welcome them
11 and all those who want to settle in that good land. The
12 situation is very good, and security is normal. I traveled by
13 myself to and from the capital without any problems.
14 Down at the bottom he says I will send a report on
15 the latest situation with the company in a few days. God
16 willing, peace be upon you.
17 So within a matter of days after El Hage returns from
18 his meeting with Bin Laden, he tells Abu Khadija he went to
19 visit Haj Abdel al Hawai, Bin Laden, who says hello. Again,
20 El Hage is meeting with several people who are there. Then he
21 reassures Abu Khadija that their situation over there is very
22 good. They are very comfortable, contrary to what we have
23 been hearing. The landowners are cooperating with them. The
24 landowners are the Taliban, ladies and gentlemen. They are
25 the ones, the hosts, the people who are hosting Bin Laden and
5326
1 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. He says down at the bottom I will
2 send a report with the latest situation on the company in a
3 few days. That is a report on the Taliban, Government's
4 Exhibit 300B-T, that has Abu Hafs' name on it, and 245, the
5 one that doesn't have Abu Hafs' name on it. Notice how he
6 refers to Al Qaeda as the company. I will send a report on
7 the latest situation with the company in a few days. Al Qaeda
8 code, talking about Al Qaeda, talking about how the group is
9 comfortable in Afghanistan with the help of the Taliban.
10 One other point about this letter, where El Hage says
11 they are very comfortable contrary to what we have been
12 hearing or reading in the newspapers and magazines. El Hage
13 is revealing that he does read what is in the newspapers and
14 magazines what is said about Al Qaeda, and of course what is
15 said about Bin Laden. Consider that and put it in the context
16 of what El Hage and Bin Laden are talking about in February
17 1997, merely a matter of months after Bin Laden has publicly
18 declared war on the United States and nearly seven months
19 before he will tell the grand jury that he has no idea that
20 Bin Laden has declared war against America. He is reading
21 about Al Qaeda, he is telling Al Qaeda what the truth is,
22 contrary to what the media is saying about Al Qaeda in
23 Afghanistan.
24 There are some other calls that confirm El Hage's
25 visit. Government's Exhibit 215A-T, which is a call involving
5327
1 Ahmed Tawhil and El Hage, one of these people who is around El
2 Hage in Kenya at the time. On March 22, 1997, El Hage tells
3 Ahmed Tawhil, I was calling our friend the doctor, but his
4 phone kept ringing, but nobody answered. Our friend who I
5 came from where he was. And Tawhil says, Taysir? And El Hage
6 says yeah.
7 The telephone records for the satellite phone,
8 Government's Exhibit 594, show that with the exception of
9 March 9, 1997, there are no outgoing calls during this time.
10 Again, for whatever reason, the phone isn't working. You know
11 that's the phone in Afghanistan that is part of the Al Qaeda
12 headquarters, and that is what El Hage is telling Tawhil, and
13 Tawhil understands the code, and he says that's Taysir, right?
14 That's Abu Hafs, and Tawhil says yes.
15 April 20, 1997, another recording conversation,
16 marked 2. Saif al Islam, talking to Wadih El Hage, and Saif
17 al Islam says the group moved and are not answering the phone.
18 We have work to do, it's disruptive. Saif al Islam is talking
19 about this in the context of needing approval, and he suggests
20 that they can send money to Saif al Islam through El Hage. So
21 when Saif al Islam is having difficulties reaching the group,
22 again because there are problems with the phone, who does he
23 call? He calls the facilitator Wadih El Hage, because we have
24 work to do. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, work is code for
25 jihad. Wadih El Hage is going to act, or at least Saif al
5328
1 Islam wants him to act as the go-between between himself and
2 the Al Qaeda headquarters.
3 April 20, 1997, Government's Exhibit 594-3, if we
4 could pull that up. Again, the minutes from the satellite
5 phone. The minutes show a call on April 20, 1997, from the
6 satellite phone to the El Hage number, lasting 7.3 minutes.
7 So the phone is back on line, and he gets in touch with El
8 Hage.
9 Also on April 20, the telephone records for the
10 mobile phone 7120219 show a call from the cell phone to the
11 satellite phone on the same day that the satellite phone calls
12 El Hage. We already went through this conversation, but
13 218A-T is the conversation on April 21 where El Hage gives
14 Harun in a coded fashion the telephone number for the
15 satellite phone, for Dr. Atef's clinic, in case Harun wants to
16 take the family to see Dr. Atef.
17 What is interesting about that conversation, ladies
18 and gentlemen, is, compare it to the conversation marked
19 Defense Exhibit WEHXW19, where El Hage is talking about some
20 of his business, and he gives out Mr. Imbogo's phone number.
21 And there is no code, and there is no cryptic references to
22 clinics or doctors. That's the business transaction, which is
23 clearly distinguishable from the conversations where El Hage
24 is conducting Al Qaeda business.
25 As we know from the documents, the new policy that El
5329
1 Hage brought back ordered Al Qaeda members, and in particular
2 the East Africa cell, to go to Somalia to conduct additional
3 training. You know from Government's Exhibit 310-74AT, which
4 is the report, top secret report from Khalid, that Khalid al
5 Fadl met with some of the local engineers. You know from both
6 that report and also the new policy report, that Marwan, the
7 defendant Odeh, and Shuaib, they went by sea, which makes
8 sense, that the fishermen went by sea to go and conduct the
9 operations in Somalia up the coast. Shuaib is Government's
10 Exhibit 115.
11 One of the documents -- by the way, Khalfan Khamis
12 Mohamed, you may remember he told Agent Perkins that he went
13 to Somalia in 1997, that he went a couple of times, and one of
14 the times he got up there was in Suliman's boat, which he said
15 was used for jihad. Suliman, ladies and gentlemen, is
16 somebody different than --
17 MR. SCHMIDT: Objection, your Honor.
18 THE COURT: The jury's recollection of the evidence
19 will control.
20 MR. SCHMIDT: That is not the basis of my objection,
21 your Honor. If you want me to make it at the bench, I will
22 make it at the bench.
23 THE COURT: I will see you and the reporter.
24 (Continued on next page)
25
5331
1 (Page 5330 sealed)
2 (In open court)
3 THE COURT: The objection is overruled.
4 MR. KARAS: One of the other things that Khalfan
5 Khamis Mohamed said to Agent Perkin was that he himself had
6 received training in Afghanistan and he had put that timing at
7 around 1994. You will remember that the witness Abdullah
8 Hamisi had mentioned that Khalfan Khamis Mohamed told him that
9 he had gotten training in Afghanistan, training that was
10 financed by Bin Laden, training that focused on jihad. You
11 remember, he was timing it to when he opened up his juice
12 cafe. I submit, ladies and gentlemen, at some point before
13 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed admitted that he went to Somalia, he
14 also admitted that he had gotten training in Afghanistan, he
15 had gotten training in basic explosives and advanced
16 explosives, and he got this training before he went up to
17 Somalia in 1997.
18 One of the documents that is found in the defendant
19 Odeh's house is Government's Exhibit 702-T. 702-T appears to
20 be a ledger, a budget of some kind, and you can see that it
21 talks about the item and the quantity and the amount of
22 currency and the beneficiary and so forth. This document had
23 the fingerprint of Mustafa Fadhl, document that was found in
24 Odeh's house in Witu, a budget of some sort with Mustafa
25 Fadhl's fingerprint on it. The document doesn't have the year
5332
1 on it. It does have the date and the month, and it has
2 references throughout about money being spent in connection
3 with buying for training and military items. Down at the
4 bottom it says expenses note al Saghir was sent to Mombasa
5 carrying a report.
6 If we go to the next page, there is a reference on
7 what appears to be July 21, and again, we don't know the year
8 for sure but you will see in context it talks about training
9 and it mentions an $1,800 loan, Ahmed Madhri to purchase a
10 boat for brother Khalid. Again, that is Mustafa.
11 On page 4 there is an entry there for August 7,
12 weapons and artilleries, quantity 1,000, price in Kenya
13 currency, 50,000. Price in dollars, weapons 1,100,
14 artilleries, 300. Beneficiary: Work. Note: The money was
15 sent to purchase weapons and artilleries for work purposes,
16 since the dollar is worth 35 Kenyan schillings.
17 Again, work purposes means jihad, and here you have a
18 budget in Odeh's house where they are purchasing weapons and
19 artilleries for the jihad work.
20 The next thing that happens in March of 1997 is that
21 CNN goes to Afghanistan and conducts an interview with Usama
22 Bin Laden, and according to a stipulation that was marked as
23 Government's Exhibit 33, that interview took place in March of
24 1997.
25 If we go to the second page of the transcript that is
5333
1 marked as 80-T, you will see that Bin Laden is asked the
2 question about his declaration of jihad, and he gives a very
3 succinct answer. He says, we declared jihad against the US
4 government because the US government is unjust, criminal and
5 tyrannical. It has committed acts that are extremely unjust,
6 hideous and criminal, whether directly or through its support
7 of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. So he is adding an
8 additional reason for the war against America. About two
9 thirds of the way down that same answer Bin Laden says, as for
10 what you asked, whether jihad is directed against US soldiers,
11 the civilians in the land of the two holy places, Saudi
12 Arabia, or against the civilians in America, we have focused
13 in our declaration on striking at the soldiers in the country
14 of the two holy places. The country of the two holy places
15 has in our religion a peculiarity of its own over other Muslim
16 countries. In our religion it is not permissible for any
17 nonMuslim to stay in our country. Therefore, even though
18 American civilians are not targeted in our plan, they must
19 leave. We do not guarantee their safety because we are in a
20 society of more than a billion Muslims. A reaction might take
21 place as a result of US government's hitting Muslim civilians,
22 a warning that you will see Bin Laden play out later on. At
23 the last part of that answer, Bin Laden says so, the US is
24 responsible for any reaction, because it has transgressed
25 through war from military personnel to civilians. This is
5334
1 what we say. As for what you asked regarding the American
2 people, they are not exonerated from responsibility because
3 they chose this government and voted for it despite their
4 knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and in
5 other places, and its support of its collaborating regime who
6 filled our prisons with our best children and scholars. We
7 ask that God may release them.
8 Ladies and gentlemen, Bin Laden is sending a message.
9 Yes, the main focus of our jihad is the American soldiers in
10 Saudi Arabia, but we hold the American civilian population
11 responsible, because you the American civilian population
12 elected that government that has undertaken the policies that
13 we find to be so objectionable. Bin Laden is going to take
14 that theme and he is going to use it later on to justify
15 attacks against civilians. In other words, ladies and
16 gentlemen, Bin Laden is signaling his intention to make sure
17 that American civilians are not in his eyes considered
18 innocent, and that they therefore become justifiable targets.
19 The next answer at the very end, Bin Laden says, and
20 this is on the top of page 3, so the driving away jihad
21 against the US does not stop with its withdrawal from the
22 Arabian peninsula but rather it must desist from aggressive
23 intervention against Muslims in the whole world.
24 Yes, the symbolic act that Bin Laden finds so
25 objectionable is the presence of American troops in Saudi
5335
1 Arabia, but it is deeper than that. He sees the United States
2 as the cause of all the problems and he sees the United States
3 as the aggressor, and he believes he is right in reacting in
4 kind, and he is telling not only the Al Qaeda members but
5 publicly through CNN what it is that he believes justifies his
6 actions.
7 On page 4, down about halfway down that first full
8 answer, now Bin Laden is talking about the presence of the
9 troops and American policy in general, and what he says there,
10 that first line, the sentence beginning with when, when the
11 Saudi government oppressed and the voices of those who call
12 for Islam, I found myself forced, especially after the
13 government prevented Sheik Salman al Awdah and Sheik Safar al
14 Hawali and some other scholars to carry out a small part of my
15 duty of joining what is right and fighting what is wrong. So
16 I collaborated with some brothers and established a committee
17 for offering advice and we started to publish some
18 declarations. The Advice and Reformation Committee in London.
19 However, the Saudi regime did not like this and started to
20 exercise pressure on the Sudanese regime. The US government,
21 the Egyptian government and the Yemeni government also helped
22 in doing so. They requested me explicitly from the Sudanese
23 regime and the pressure continued. Saudi Arabia dropped all
24 its conditions put to the Sudanese regime in return that I be
25 driven out of the Sudan. The US government had already taken
5336
1 the same stance and pulled out its diplomatic mission from
2 chart to Nairobi and put forth their condition to return only
3 after I have left.
4 You know that Bin Laden had the headquarters in Sudan
5 up until some point in 1996 when he goes to Afghanistan and
6 issues the declaration of jihad. What he tells you in this
7 statement on CNN is that he blames the US government for
8 putting pressure on the Sudanese for driving him out of the
9 Sudan and into Afghanistan. He takes note of the fact that
10 part of the pressure was by removing the diplomatic presence
11 from Khartoum and sending it to Nairobi. In March of 1997,
12 Bin Laden is keenly aware of that move by the United States,
13 and I submit to you it provides a powerful motive that Bin
14 Laden had to hit the American Embassy in Nairobi in August
15 1998, to get back to the United States for its diplomatic
16 pressure on the Sudan that caused him to have to go to
17 Afghanistan.
18 On page 6, Bin Laden is asked about some attacks in
19 Riyadh and in Al Khobar. He says as to the previous question,
20 the explosion in Riyadh and Al Khobar, it is no secret that I
21 was not in Saudi Arabia, but I have great respect for the
22 people who did this action. I say, as I said before, they are
23 heroes. We look upon them as men who wanted to raise the flag
24 of -- there is no God but Allah and to bring the flag of
25 nonbelievers and of injustice that the US brought. So he is
5337
1 lauding the efforts of some other people who participated in,
2 as he calls it, the explosion of Riyadh and Al Khobar. He is
3 not taking credit for it. He is saying I didn't do it but I
4 applaud what they did for the reasons that you should know,
5 that the Americans should be driven out.
6 At the bottom of that page is a very brief reference
7 again to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman. You remember, he is the
8 person that Bin Laden talks about in his August 1996
9 declaration of jihad where he blames the American government
10 for the arrest, something that the witness al Fadl told you,
11 well before Bin Laden gave this interview.
12 Then, ladies and gentlemen, on page 7, down at the
13 bottom, Bin Laden is asked about Somalia. Bin Laden says the
14 US government went there with great jubilation and stayed
15 there sometime with a strong media presence, wanting to
16 frighten people that it is the greatest power on earth. It
17 went there with vanity and 28,000 soldiers to a poor unarmed
18 people in Somalia. The goal was to scare the Muslim world and
19 the whole world to say that it is able to do whatever it
20 wishes. As soon as they reached the Mogadishu beaches, they
21 found no one but children. The CNN and other media started
22 photographing them, the soldiers, with their tanks and heavy
23 arms, and show themselves as the great power on earth.
24 Resistance started because Muslims did not believe the US
25 allegations that they came to save the Somalis.
5338
1 Continuing on the next page, with Allah's grace,
2 Muslims over there, there was a faction from the Islamic
3 alliance that emerged and cooperated with some Mujahideen who
4 were in Afghanistan. They participated with their brothers
5 against the American troops and killed large numbers of them.
6 The American government was aware of that. After some
7 resistance, the American troops left without achieving
8 anything.
9 Down below, Bin Laden tells the world what he
10 believed from Somalia. We learned from those who fought there
11 that they were surprised to see how low the spiritual morale
12 of the American fighters was compared with the spirit of the
13 Russian fighters. The American fighters ran away from the
14 fighters who fought and killed them.
15 Bin Laden is talking very much about the Mujahideen
16 in Afghanistan working with the local troops to attack the
17 Americans, and he gives you his interpretation of why he
18 thinks the Americans were in Somalia, to take over the country
19 and to show that America was the strongest nation in the
20 world. You will see Bin Laden talk more about Somalia when he
21 gives a second interview with ABC News in 1998. Towards the
22 end, on page 9, Bin Laden is asked very simply what are your
23 future plans. He says rather ominously, you will see them and
24 hear about them in the media, God willing.
25 Then down at the bottom when he is asked if he wants
5339
1 to deliver a message to President Clinton, he adds a message
2 to the mothers. He says to these mothers, the mothers of the
3 American soldiers, I say, if they are concerned for their
4 sons, they should object to the government's policy and to the
5 American president. He is sending a clear message, ladies and
6 gentlemen. You will see and what you will hear what I will
7 do, and to the American mothers, you will have to put pressure
8 on your government to get your sons out of the Saudi Gulf
9 peninsula.
10 Five months after this interview takes place, Wadih
11 El Hage goes back to see Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and the
12 first clue of this trip comes in Government's Exhibit 289A-T,
13 another intercepted conversation on July 15, 1997, and it
14 involves Wadih El Hage and an unidentified male. El Hage
15 talks about in the conversation that Harun is on the inside,
16 which is a reference to Somalia, because remember, they are
17 carrying out the new policy of Bin Laden. He says listen, I
18 will be going to see El Hage after a couple of days. From
19 there, the unidentified male asks for a stickerat, the thing
20 that gets you through, talking about a visa that goes on a
21 passport. El Hage says yes, fine, if God willing, when I went
22 the last time they were preparing this kind of thing.
23 He is once again using the reference. El Hage says
24 he is going to see Bin Laden. By the way, this unidentified
25 male knows who he is talking about, because he doesn't say
5340
1 who, and he says what about the stickerats, and El Hage says
2 when I was there before they were making a few of them. Part
3 of what they have to be good at in their business is fake
4 travel documents.
5 While El Hage is visiting Bin Laden in Afghanistan,
6 some very significant events happen. In early August there is
7 a newspaper article that we can see as Government's Exhibit
8 645 -- this, by the way, is found in El Hage's files during
9 that MIRA search in August 1988. You see just the headline.
10 Saudis detain key member on US terror team.
11 Now if we can display Government's Exhibit 246-T.
12 This is a facsimile that is sent from El Hage's house by
13 Harun. In fact, it even says down at the bottom, your brother
14 Harun al Kamari, Wadih's residence. That is a translation of
15 the document that is faxed. At the top you see underlined
16 urgent. This fax, if you take a look at the records for the
17 820066 number, goes to Khalid al Fawwaz's number in England,
18 44208, 44433. Remember, he has 441 number and the 44433
19 number, which is the facsimile. Dear God Khalid, may peace
20 and God's Mercy and blessings be upon you. We appeal to God
21 to be as he please in your religion and worldly existence. We
22 have read in one of the magazines which is published where you
23 are that there was an economic manager who used to work with
24 the Haj and who has transferred to an American British
25 company. Please provide us with the sufficient information on
5341
1 this manager for we want to know whether he knew of Sabbour's
2 company here or of his work here in order to take the
3 appropriate steps to deal with him, knowing that Sabbour had
4 traveled to the Haj and has not returned yet.
5 Ladies and gentlemen, they say a picture is worth a
6 thousand words. But I say to you, in the small number of
7 words in this letter you have just learned a great deal about
8 the conspiracy in this case to kill US nationals.
9 Government's Exhibit 245 is the Daily Telegraph,
10 which is a British newspaper. Khalid Fawwaz, you know, lives
11 in London. He is referencing an economic manager who used to
12 work with the Haj and has transferred to an American British
13 company. Harun is talking about somebody who the media is
14 reporting, somebody who used to be in Al Qaeda, who used to
15 work with the Haj, who has transferred to an American British
16 company, using business lingo to make the following point,
17 somebody is cooperating with the enemy. Somebody is working
18 with the enemy, as it is reported in this magazine, and he
19 says in the next line, please provide us with the sufficient
20 information on this manager for we want to know whether he
21 knew of Sabbour's company here. What does this person who has
22 gone to the enemy know about El Hage and the cell here in East
23 Africa and his work here so that Harun and the others can take
24 appropriate steps to deal with him, knowing that Abdel Sabbour
25 had traveled to the Haj and has not returned yet. So knowing
5342
1 that Wadih El Hage is visiting Bin Laden, Harun gets this very
2 disturbing news and he reaches all the way out to England to
3 Khalid al Fawwaz, the person who used to have Wadih El Hage's
4 job in Nairobi, working for the Al Qaeda cell. He says please
5 see what you can find out about this, we are very concerned.
6 At the bottom he writes, the response is very urgent.
7 Now we see the heat gets turned up in Government's
8 Exhibit 223A-T. This is an intercepted conversation that
9 takes place on August 13. So you get the time line. You will
10 see that that facsimile was sent on August 2 from Harun to
11 Fawwaz, and we will see that in a minute. It is also in the
12 telephone records. Now you have a telephone conversation
13 involving Harun and Abu Khadija in Germany, who says contrary
14 to what we are hearing, everything is fine in Afghanistan.
15 Now Harun is talking to him. If we go to the sixth page -- by
16 the way, the first five pages of this, if you read it or you
17 listened to the conversation, you would think they are talking
18 about medical deals, making the point that they do mix
19 business with business. Then at the bottom of page 6, Harun
20 says the situation is good. Listen to me, the situation is
21 good. There is a manager who used to work with the Haj down
22 there. Khadija says yes. Harun says, it appears that he
23 moved from his company to an American company. Khadija says
24 what do you mean by that? Harun responds he is one of the
25 people in Saudi Arabia. Khadija, still confused, did you read
5343
1 this in the magazine? Yes, he did. You mean he moved, he
2 started working with them? Harun, yes, he's worked with them
3 through Saudi Arabia. Khadija says tell me who that is.
4 Harun says you probably know him, he's the same, the same --
5 what? The same family? And Harun says and in a sentence he
6 tells you who it is. He, you know, I mean, one leg and a
7 half. Khadija. Really? Harun, yeah, the magazine was issued
8 from where Hamad is. Khadija realizes the danger and his next
9 line, brother, there is no power and no strength safe in God.
10 Can this be possible? Harun, yes, I read it myself. Then
11 Khadija completes the identity. He is the one who got married
12 with a woman from his side? That is Abu Fadhl al Makkee, who
13 El Hage told you married the niece of Usama Bin Laden, who had
14 his leg amputated below one of his knees, and they are
15 describing him as being one of the people they are concerned
16 has now cooperated with the American government. In fact,
17 Khadija says he is the one who got married with a woman from
18 his side, right, the one who married a woman from the Haj's
19 side. Khadija says I know him. Can this be possible?
20 Doublecheck this. Harun says it is possible because I heard
21 it on the radio and then I bought the Daily Telegraph. He
22 even tells you the day he bought the Daily Telegraph, the 2nd
23 of the month, which is the 2nd of August, which is when he
24 faxes Khalid al Fawwaz.
25 If we go to the second part of the page, towards the
5344
1 bottom Khadija says glory, you should have informed me of such
2 a thing, glory to the Lord. Harun says I have tried to call
3 you for a week. Such things you have to -- right away because
4 the boss director over there is unable to call us nor to
5 inform us.
6 They continue. Khadija says, halfway down, you know,
7 I was looking for, you know what I'm doing, I'm looking for
8 him. Harun says yes, and Khadija says you have to make sure,
9 is this news confirmed? Harun confirms the fax that you saw
10 earlier. I sent this to Hamad by fax. Khadija says tell me,
11 has the big boss been informed of this or not? Harun says I
12 don't know, I don't know. I have not even informed Wadih.
13 Khadija says try to inform him so he can take precaution of
14 the forged check. Again the business lingo. He is the money
15 person, Abu Fadhl al Makkee, and they are worried about the
16 information he is going to give up to the Americans. Harun
17 says I should, because it was written in the newspaper that he
18 mentions the accounts of Bin Laden all over the world. I read
19 that. Then Khadija goes on a little bit down below. No, no,
20 be careful. One should not think twice about that forgery.
21 Be careful not to get into a lot of troubles. Be cautious.
22 That's it. We understand now. Please call. You have my
23 telephone numbers, don't you? The word is out. Everybody
24 needs to be careful.
25 If we go to the top of page 10, you see how aware Al
5345
1 Qaeda is about the security measures against them. Khadija
2 asks, how is your telephone? Do I get a headache if I use it?
3 Harun says don't even try, we suspect, we suspect, this is
4 better, this is better. Khadija says are they listening to
5 this call? Should I call you here? Harun says absolutely.
6 So Khadija gives him a different number, and down at
7 the bottom you see Khadija will announce the code for how they
8 are going to discuss the matter in the future. Swear to God,
9 try not to give my phone numbers to anybody, because it is a
10 company, you see, and I don't want to -- but it is a headache
11 about that lame, as you see, call so we know the condition.
12 Say the condition is such and such so we know the manager. He
13 was in charge of the director and the company and he was in
14 charge of the money, you know, which explains why it is they
15 were so concerned.
16 If we go to the next page, you see down at the bottom
17 half Khadija says no, or Harun says the matter is not easy,
18 and Khadija confirms no, it is not easy. The boss wouldn't
19 have any troubles but we would. The boss in Afghanistan may
20 not have the troubles, but we in Kenya and we in Germany are
21 going to have troubles if this person is truly cooperating
22 with the Americans. Harun says I will find out about this
23 matter. Yes, so we can change things and stuff like that, in
24 order to -- you understand, in order to see if I have
25 something forged that they have wrote on me. Is there
5346
1 anything that they have about me, is what Khadija is worried
2 about.
3 Then you see on the next page, Harun makes a
4 reference, and the Nawawi's place, almost all the accounts in
5 the Nawawi's place have been held. That is Ihab Ali. They
6 want to remove the Haj. The Nawawi's place is America,
7 because remember, Nawawi, Ihab Ali, moves to Florida. So they
8 are referring to the Nawawi's place as America, who wants to
9 remove the Haj. They are pretty much happy with them, you
10 see. Then you see down at the bottom, Khadija says yes,
11 indeed, so there should be, the matter is not easy as to
12 losing a job like that, the appointment. So stay, may God
13 help, is the Nawawi at your place? Harun says the Nawawi is
14 there, there in America.
15 Ladies and gentlemen, you will see, we talked a
16 little bit about correspondence between El Hage and this
17 person Nawawi, and this correspondence is some of which El
18 Hage lies about in the grand jury, when asked whether he knows
19 anybody who lives in America. Nawawi is one of the people
20 they talk about in the conversation about al Makkee
21 cooperating with the Americans.
22 So in these two pieces of paper you see all the
23 critical pieces coming together and how they are reacting to
24 the threat from their enemy. Harun is getting in touch with
25 El Hage. Harun gets in touch with Abu Khadija, to whom El
5347
1 Hage said I went to see Bin Laden. Harun and Khadija are
2 talking about the need to get in touch with El Hage to protect
3 the cell in East Africa from the Americans, and of course to
4 let Bin Laden know so that he can protect himself and others
5 in Al Qaeda can make sure they do what they have to do to
6 avoid Americans.
7 Why is that? That's because it is one enemy
8 recognizing the other enemy. They are not concerned that the
9 Americans are going to find out about gem deals or the Renan
10 tribe in Somalia. They are concerned that people will find
11 out about the war against Americans by Bin Laden, the people
12 who continue to work with Bin Laden to carry out wars against
13 America. It is the Americans they are worried about, not the
14 Saudis. It's the Americans.
15 You see it again in Government's Exhibit 300A-T.
16 Ladies and gentlemen, this is a document that is written by
17 Harun. You will see several pieces of this that show that.
18 This is one of the deleted files that was found on El Hage's
19 computer Government's Exhibit 300, and Agent Crisalli talked
20 to you about how he was able to retrieve some of the deleted
21 files from the computer. At the very beginning of this report
22 Harun says we can now say that the security position of the
23 crew is at 100 percent danger. In this report I will try to
24 state the reasons that made us feel about this dangerous
25 situation. I will also try to offer my recommendation to the
5348
1 kind and wise high command that understands a lot and we hope
2 is seeking the best.
3 Down below that first paragraph Harun says, as we
4 have heard, witnessed and read, the Haj has declared war on
5 America and that was confirmed when we heard the tape of the
6 press interview that took place in Jalalabad, and the sheik
7 stated some points including: We declared war against America
8 because it made itself police of the world. I have nothing to
9 do with the two explosions in Saudi Arabia but I am glad they
10 took place. You will hear my future plans on radio stations.
11 Harun adds his comment, and other points that we are pleased
12 to hear, thanks be to God.
13 We saw CNN and that we like to hear. Bin Laden wants
14 to kill Americans, we're happy about it.
15 Remember, and you will see this, this is a document
16 that wasn't meant for the eyes of anybody outside Al Qaeda.
17 This is a document that Harun writes to the high and wise
18 administration, the people in Afghanistan. So he is going to
19 lay out exactly what it is that he and the others in the East
20 Africa cell are thinking and what is on their mind. We heard
21 about the CNN interview and we liked what Bin Laden said.
22 Then he says on page 2, keeping in mind all this discussion
23 about the Abu al Makkee, they should know that they are
24 America's primary target now and that there is an American
25 Kenyan Egyptian intelligence activity in Nairobi working to
5349
1 identify the locations and the people who are dealing with the
2 sheik, since America knows well that the youth who worked in
3 Somalia and who are followers of the sheik are the ones that
4 have carried out operations to hit the Americans in Somalia.
5 Harun, the person who told Kherchtou that he is in Somalia, is
6 telling the high and wise command they have figured out we
7 were there. America knows full well that the followers of the
8 Bin Laden were the ones that went into Somalia and that the
9 main gateway for those people is Kenya. Therefore, there must
10 be a center in Kenya. Ahmad Tawhil told us that he will talk
11 about changing us because we are in real danger. I told him
12 that the crew will welcome this because we are convinced 100
13 percent that indeed our situation in Kenya is extremely bad.
14 How things have changed from that report, that top
15 secret report that said the security situation is good. From
16 their perspective, what is the cause of the change? The
17 Americans have figured out who is there and what they did.
18 Harun goes on in the next paragraph. He read in the
19 newspaper news of the arrest of five Kenyans in Kenya. I
20 warned Ahmad Madurani that there is an intelligence activity
21 in Kenya to identify the emirs of the brothers and the
22 foreigners who work with the brothers. What we think is that
23 there is American pressure on Kenya to search for the Arabs
24 living in the region. Therefore, brother Sharif, be cautious
25 and whoever is with you of the engineers, and be advised that
5350
1 that any moment any one of us could fall.
2 Perception is what guides their action, ladies and
3 gentlemen, and in August of 1997 Harun is talking about and is
4 concerned about two different activities he sees the Americans
5 doing. First, the cooperation of Abu Fadhl al Makkee that you
6 saw in the fax and the telephone conversation to Abu Khadija.
7 The second is that the Americans are very focused on the East
8 African crew, on the crew that Wadih El Hage runs. Wadih El
9 Hage is in Afghanistan at the time, visiting Bin Laden. Even
10 now as he perceives the point that the Americans and Kenyans
11 are working together in their arrests, he is attributing their
12 security problems to the Americans. Then he goes on to
13 discuss Abu Fadhl al Makkee. The last bit of news, which
14 almost made me explode when I heard it, was a news item that I
15 read in one of the British magazines, the Daily Telegraph. So
16 I asked brother Tawfiq to buy this magazine in Nairobi after
17 hearing the news item on BBC on 2 August 1997. The gist of
18 the news item is, now in the hands of the American CIA and the
19 British intelligence service M16, in Saudi Arabia. The CIA
20 did not confirm if this man, whose name is Saudi Tayyib and
21 his nickname is Abu Fadhl, was working as a double agent spy
22 for the Saudi government or he was arrested. They only said
23 that the man was in the hands of the Saudis since the middle
24 of May and that there is another man called Jamal, who is a
25 colleague and an assistant to Usama and who has cooperated
5351
1 with the Saudi government after he was arrested since May.
2 That is precisely what Jamal al Fadl told you, that Sidi al
3 Tayyib was a name that Abu Fadhl al Makkee used and that he
4 had accounts in London.
5 So now that Harun has identified the American-based
6 security threat, he describes what it is that he proposes to
7 do, and he does that in the next paragraph. He says, there
8 are some measures that we tried to take here in Nairobi, but
9 first we wanted to verify that the man called Sidi Tayyib is
10 the same person known as Abu al Fadl al Makkee. We have taken
11 the matter seriously despite the limited resources we have
12 here in the office. I have sent a fax to Hamad to provide me
13 with information, but it was futile. I do not know whether or
14 not the letter has reached him. Until now he has not
15 complied. I also tried to call Qatar to verify the name
16 through engineer al Utabai, but the telephone was always busy.
17 Finally, and from another location I sent a fax to Abu Ibrahim
18 in the Sudan and till the writing of this message on 14 August
19 1997 I have not found a reply to the fax. He confirms the
20 conversation with Abu Khadija al Iraqi in the next paragraph.
21 Abu Khadija al Iraqi from Germany also called me on 13 August
22 and I informed him about the news, which shocked him, and I
23 told him to be careful. Anyway, we are not much concerned
24 about the man's name, Abu Fadhl. It is enough that there is a
25 man who was dealing with the sheik and fell in the hands of
5352
1 the enemy. Therefore, we must take the appropriate measures.
2 I and brother Tawfiq collected all the files which we do not
3 need and which might pose a danger to us and placed them in
4 another location. We did not burn them since they belong to
5 engineer Abdel al Sabbour, who may have a different opinion.
6 He will probably arrive next week, God willing.
7 (Continued on next page)
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
5354
1 So the first thing that Harun does is he gets
2 together with Ahmed Tawhil and he hides El Hage's files. And
3 he doesn't destroy them because El Hage isn't around to
4 consult with about whether or not El Hage wants the files
5 destroyed because he is in Afghanistan.
6 So Harun hides the files, ladies and gentlemen, and
7 these are the files that turn up in the Mira office during the
8 August 1998 search, a full year after this document is
9 written. The files that have the letters, the communications
10 between El Hage and between some of the others in al Qaeda,
11 including Nawawi, the files that have all the Khalid al Fawwaz
12 documents that I talked about earlier and the files that have
13 the passport photos that we showed you earlier, Government
14 Exhibit 6404. These are the files, the files that Abu Hafs
15 does not want the enemy to have but he doesn't have the
16 authority to destroy them because he's got to talk to Wadih El
17 Hage first.
18 Then Harun continues: "We also thought that if we
19 were indeed under surveillance, then this would make us look
20 suspicious. On the same day we heard the news that the
21 partisans called us from Mombasa and asked them never to call
22 me at number again. They told me that Khalid want to talk to
23 me urgently, but I told them I will get in touch with them but
24 never to call me at that number again.
25 "After two days they called me back at the same
5355
1 number so I forced them to burn that number and immediately
2 informed Khalid that I had prohibited them from calling me
3 here, as I am 100 percent sure that the telephone is tapped
4 after Wadih's wife told me that after three days of reading
5 the newspaper, she heard strange voices in the television when
6 she was trying to adjust the speaker."
7 Down at the bottom Harun gives some additional
8 advice: "The second matter is my advice to my kind
9 intelligent high command, which I pray to God to keep safe
10 from enemies, which works to return the caliphate to earth and
11 fight the forces of etheism and dictators who wreaked havoc on
12 earth. We, the East Africa crew, do not want to know how work
13 plans are operated because we are not fit for plans. We are
14 just implementers. We, thanks be to God, trust our command
15 and appreciate their work and know that they have a lot of
16 problems. But the advice here is for work purposes only,
17 because this work we are doing, the return of an Islamic
18 state, is a team effort and not an individual one; we are all
19 participating in it."
20 Harun is writing the high and wise command, just like
21 you heard these people are trained. They are segments.
22 Headquarters decides the big picture. You have people who do
23 intelligence and do the surveillance and then you have, as
24 Harun describes it, the implementers. And Harun, ladies and
25 gentlemen, is one of the implementers who will directly
5356
1 participate in the bombing of the embassy in Nairobi, about a
2 year after he writes this report.
3 On the next page, Harun says, "As you know, we only
4 knew about the decision to declare war against America through
5 the media, as have been mentioned, and we were supposed to
6 know about the decision only, not the plans, so that we can
7 take the necessary actions for this decision so that we will
8 not cause any problems or foil your plans for not knowing
9 about the decision, so that, as you know, if one of the crew
10 fell in the hands of those due to any decisions, God forbid,
11 that will be a loss to the group."
12 So, he's telling the high command in Afghanistan, we
13 didn't know you were going to take the war public. We didn't
14 know you were going to declare war. It would have been nice
15 to know because we want to make sure we're coordinated.
16 Notice he's not saying in there, oh, you mean we're against
17 America now? We didn't realize that was what this was about.
18 We object to that. No, what Harun is saying is, that's fine,
19 let's just make sure that we don't get in each other's way.
20 You don't get in the way of what we're doing, we don't want to
21 get in the way of what you're doing.
22 And what he says in particular is, in case one of us
23 gets caught, we don't want to give up information about others
24 in the high and wise command. Again, the elements of how the
25 operation is to be done and keeping the high command separate
5357
1 from the implementers.
2 Then he asks in the next part of the same paragraph:
3 "We ask you to keep in touch with us through the Internet from
4 Pakistan, because now we get a lot of information about the
5 Sheik through this network. We even find the Sheik's pictures
6 on the net. Or you can do as Abdel Sabbur did when he faxed
7 his family from the border city next to you. We want to hear
8 your good words and we are afraid of being disconnected and
9 taking unapproved plans domestically since we do not have
10 enough expertise for such difficult decision, because these
11 decisions need people like you."
12 So you can communicate with us as Abdel Sabbur, as
13 Wadih El Hage did, by using a fax in the Border city,
14 Peshawar, right next to Afghanistan.
15 And then the last paragraph, Harun says: "Finally,
16 this advice was sincerely for the sake of God so that work
17 will, work will advance without delay. I did not write this
18 report until I was officially asked by Brother Khalid to be
19 responsible for the media information office for the crew in
20 Nairobi. He," Khalid, "also asked me to write always from
21 time to time about the security situation of the crew and the
22 group here in general in East Africa in the files of the al
23 Barakar, which always includes seven items. The third is the
24 securitization, and remember that top secret report, the one
25 that went through the new policy, and it said that Khalid
5358
1 appointed Harun to be in charge of communications."
2 Ladies and gentlemen, the circle is complete. Harun
3 is doing what he's been tasked to do. He's telling the group
4 back in Afghanistan: We are fine with attacking America,
5 we're fine with the fact it's now public, but we have to be
6 very careful because the enemy is onto us. They are onto us
7 because of Abu Fadhl al Makkee, they are onto us because of
8 what is going on in Kenya and the security situation is very
9 dangerous.
10 And in those series of communications you see exactly
11 how al Qaeda operates, who they go to when there is trouble,
12 what it is that they are motivated to do, and it lays the
13 foundation when you hear Harun say, "We are the implementers."
14 And you will see that play out later on.
15 Now, at the bottom there is a second report.
16 We can take a break now if you like, your Honor.
17 THE COURT: All right. We'll take our mid afternoon
18 recess at this point.
19 (Recess)
20 THE COURT: Bring in the jury.
21 (Jury present)
22 THE COURT: Mr. Karas, you may continue.
23 MR. KARAS: Thank you, your Honor.
24 We left off at the bottom of 300A-T, and you see that
25 this is a different report that was retrieved by Agent
5359
1 Crisalli among the deleted files in the computer found in El
2 Hage's house. And in this report, what you see at the end is
3 written by Ayman al Zawahiri. The person says: "The contact
4 between you and me is the factor. So you can send it a week
5 after it reaches you to the center to take the latest news
6 which will come through Abdel Sabbur and tell him not to call
7 from any of the phones that we have. Tell everyone else about
8 this, and he may call Abdullah and leave a message that he
9 arrived at the center so that I go to him, God willing."
10 In the next paragraph there is written: "Brother
11 Sharif: Abdel Sabbur called before he came and by the time of
12 writing these reports on August 13, 1997, he told us that he
13 will come after a week. He told Salim to prepare himself to
14 go to the director and told him also that he will request to
15 leave the house immediately. I understood that Abdel Sabbur
16 will leave quickly. I met Ahmed and told him about the matter
17 and asked him about his readiness to follow up with the
18 agency. He," and then continuing on the next page, "told me
19 that he will not (unintelligible) anything and that it is
20 better to sell these things and to rent a normal house and put
21 one of us in it with the communication devices. What I see
22 it's that you come to us directly in Nairobi at this critical
23 period of time so that you can see how things will be in the
24 future."
25 So in this paragraph you learn from this document
5360
1 that the writer of the report, which may be Harun and it may
2 be somebody else, is in touch with Abdel Sabbur by August 13.
3 That's the defendant El Hage. And Abdel Sabbur mentioned that
4 he told Salim to prepare himself to come to the director, to
5 Bin Laden in Afghanistan, and that he, El Hage, will request
6 to leave the house immediately, to leave Nairobi.
7 And the person goes on to write that "I understood
8 that Abdel Sabbur will leave quickly and invites Brother
9 Sabbur to see what things will be like in the future, to see
10 what will happen," what it is like when Abdel Sabbur, when the
11 defendant El Hage, leaves Nairobi.
12 And that specific reference to rent a normal house
13 and put one of us in it with the communication devices, I
14 submit to you is precisely what El Hage has been doing in
15 Nairobi since he replaced Khalid al Fawwaz in 1994 -- get a
16 normal house and then set up a communication device where you
17 can then assume the duties of the group, the same way that
18 Wadih El Hage did and the same way that Khalid al Fawwaz did
19 before him.
20 Now, at some point, as you know, Wadih El Hage
21 returns from his trip to Afghanistan, and among the items that
22 shows you that is Government Exhibit 315. 315-1 is a ticket
23 stub that Agent Coleman testified about. You see the arrival
24 there, Nairobi. It says Mr. El Nage, Wadih, and then on page
25 3 of that exhibit, you see the ticket, El Hage, Nairobi to
5361
1 Karachi, and then an open return. And by the way, you see
2 that the ticket is issued for Pakistani Airways, Flight 744, a
3 flight number you will see later on in August of 1998.
4 Now, Government Exhibit 314 is a copy of El Hage's
5 passport. We can look at page 2 of that. This is a later
6 page that shows -- if we could go to 314-2, and there you see
7 El Hage's passport. And then 314-5, what you see there almost
8 in the middle of the screen, the angled entry stamp 20 Feb.
9 1997, that's the return trip in February. And you will see
10 the return trip in August, that's on page 12. There you see
11 the visa, Pakistan, 1997.
12 Now, El Hage returns in August, August 21, 1997,
13 which is the time that Agent Coleman is conducting the search
14 where he found the computer and where he found the address
15 books that you have seen so many of the names come up, and
16 that's where he found some of these daily planners and
17 business card holders. And one of the business cards that El
18 Hage had, Government Exhibit 306, at page 200, you will see on
19 the top right, Mamdouh M. Salim, and Mamdouh Salim you know is
20 the name for Abu Hajer.
21 Abu Hajer is the person we talked about earlier this
22 morning who is on the fatwah committee. He's the person who
23 issued some of the earlier fatwahs that deal with al Qaeda
24 being against America because of the Saudi Arabian Gulf
25 Peninsula and also because of Somalia.
5362
1 September 1997, two very important things happen.
2 The first is Wadih El Hage testifies before the Grand Jury
3 here in the Southern District of New York and he testifies a
4 little over a year after Bin Laden has issued his August 1996
5 declaration of war, a little less than six months after Bin
6 Laden has the interview with CNN, where he says he's declared
7 war against America, a little less than after a month after
8 the group has learned what it believes to be the cooperation
9 of Abu Fadhl al Makkee with the Americans, and it's a little
10 less than one year before the embassies are bombed in East
11 Africa.
12 And you will see later on, and we will go through the
13 perjury counts count by count, but Wadih El Hage is asked
14 questions about his relationship with Bin Laden, his
15 relationship with some of the leaders of al Qaeda, and his
16 relationship with other members or suspected members of al
17 Qaeda. And it is that moment that Wadih El Hage is given a
18 choice: Assist the United States in its investigation of al
19 Qaeda and its leader who has declared war on the United
20 States, or continue to side with Bin Laden and al Qaeda.
21 And you will see, ladies and gentlemen, that the
22 evidence overwhelmingly established that El Hage made his
23 choice. He violated his oath. He didn't tell the truth. He
24 lied about al Qaeda. He lied about Bin Laden. He chose,
25 Wadih El Hage, the American citizen, chose al Qaeda and Bin
5363
1 Laden over America.
2 And he did this for two reasons -- really one reason,
3 ladies and gentlemen. He did this to protect al Qaeda. He
4 did this to conceal al Qaeda's activities from the United
5 States. He did this as part of the conspiracy to make sure
6 that al Qaeda and those he was working with can continue in
7 their efforts against the United States.
8 And you see the security concerns that al Qaeda has
9 when it comes to America in those documents we went through
10 before the break. And so when El Hage is asked questions,
11 what he is going to do is he is going to remain loyal to Bin
12 Laden, he is going to remain loyal to al Qaeda, and he is
13 going to obstruct the investigation so that the others can
14 continue in their work.
15 And, ladies and gentlemen, El Hage's choice is both
16 symbolic and its tragic. It is symbolic because its reflects
17 precisely his involvement in this conspiracy. It reflects the
18 fact that he will remain loyal to it even when confronted with
19 very simple, straightforward questions about al Qaeda and his
20 relationship with al Qaeda.
21 And it is tragic. It is tragic, ladies and
22 gentlemen, because it robbed the United States of an
23 opportunity to investigate and crack the Bin Laden cell nearly
24 11 months before the embassies are bombed, before the
25 embassies are bombed by the East African cell that he ran, the
5364
1 implementers such as Harun, Wadih El Hage's deputy. And that
2 is why it is tragic. It is also illegal, and we will talk
3 about that later.
4 Now, not surprisingly, al Qaeda reacts to the
5 security threat that it perceives, and you heard from the
6 witness, Kherchtou, who told you that Harun came up to Sudan
7 and told Kherchtou about the search of El Hage's house. And
8 in particular, Kherchtou was told by Harun that the Americans
9 got the computer -- the computer that you know has the
10 security report, the computer that has the report regarding
11 the Taliban and the computer that has other documents that
12 were written to the al Qaeda high command.
13 And you may remember Essam al Ridi, the pilot. He
14 told you that when he spoke to Wadih El Hage, El Hage
15 mentioned to him that the Americans took his computer among
16 the other items. So al Qaeda does what it did in the Harun
17 security report. It's making sure people are aware of where
18 the Americans are investigating and what it is that they
19 found.
20 Now, at the same time all of this is going on, Odeh,
21 defendant Odeh, is in Somalia, still carrying out the new
22 policy to train people in Somalia. And he writes, we talked
23 about this earlier, the tape letter that is found in his house
24 in Witu. And this is an enlargement, Government Exhibit
25 710-96.
5365
1 In this letter you see that Odeh is writing his wife,
2 and what he says is: "Something happened which you may have
3 heard of or are aware of some of its details. Some kind of
4 distress/crisis has happened to few brothers where you are.
5 They had some problems. These problems were expected. They
6 were not farfetched. One expected these problems to happen
7 today before tomorrow and yesterday before today. But we had
8 no idea the nature of these problems and their magnitude.
9 "We heard the news about something that had happened
10 which may compel us to stay here in our locations without
11 moving due to the difficulty of the situation where you are
12 and also due to the inability to get to you using the way or
13 any of the ways that could take me to you. So it has been
14 decided that we have to stay here and not to move.
15 "We saw that the best thing is to reassure you and to
16 keep you well informed of the matter. Thank God for telling
17 you everything in details from the beginning and
18 (unintelligible) that you have endured. Thank God for your
19 letters that have been reassuring. Harun also said good news
20 about you when he came over. He said the whole family are
21 well, thank God, the master of the universe, and all they were
22 asking is to send them letters."
23 Now, ladies and gentlemen, this is part of a series
24 of tape letters, and some of the other ones place the dates of
25 these letters roughly in September of 1997. There is a
5366
1 reference to how he had been in Somalia for six months. So in
2 September 1997, defendant Odeh is writing back to his wife
3 about some problems. So there's a crisis, and whatever the
4 crisis is, it's keeping the people who were implementing the
5 new policy in Somalia, forcing them to stay in Somalia.
6 And you see the reference down at the bottom to
7 Harun. Harun also said good news. Now, remember Harun is the
8 communications person within the East African cell, and you
9 remember this morning we went through some of the telephone
10 calls where Harun was talking to Shuaib and he was talking to
11 Mustafa and he was talking to some of the other al Qaeda
12 members about El Hage's visit to Afghanistan in February 1997.
13 Harun is the one who writes the security report to
14 the high and wise command and in there he references the fact
15 that he's been in touch with Khalid and some other people in
16 the security situations. And now the news, whatever this news
17 is, in September of 1997 has gotten to Odeh in Somalia, and
18 what he's explaining to his wife is that this is a problem and
19 it's going to keep me here for a while.
20 Now, on the next page of the translation, Odeh writes
21 further, "I appeal to God to ease the burden on you and ask
22 God to compensate us with goodness for this loss. By God, I
23 miss you very much. I've always wanted us to be together
24 without being apart for one day, also to be able to visit you
25 and come back to keep on worshipping, obeying the laws of God,
5367
1 which I am taking upon myself while you carry on with your
2 life as usual."
3 And then the tone changes, "But may God fight against
4 the enemies. They neither sleep nor rest and they don't let
5 anybody rest. Anyhow, this is the way it should be. If they
6 let us rest, we will not let them rest. So they certainly
7 have their time and we have ours. This time may have been
8 theirs, but not all times will be theirs. We will never allow
9 that, and may God, the master of universe, to respond 20 fold
10 to one of theirs. "Thank God we are still alive and we are
11 still capable of giving and resisting. But of course the
12 matter will require time, preparation and thinking."
13 "Time, preparation and thinking." Ladies and
14 gentlemen, we will come back in the context of this, but bear
15 in mind by September of 1997, the al Qaeda cell in East Africa
16 is concerned about the cooperation with the Americans of Abu
17 Fadhl al Makkee. The al Qaeda cell in East Africa has learned
18 that the Americans have searched the house of Wadih El Hage
19 and that they have taken his computer among the other objects.
20 And remember the reference that Harun had to the
21 arrest of these five people and how they blamed, Harun blamed
22 the American intelligence for the arrest of these people in
23 Kenya. And he said that there is an American/Kenyan
24 intelligence effort because the Americans know well that it
25 was the youth of the Sheik that were responsible for what
5368
1 happened to the Americans in Somalia.
2 So by September of 1997, America is very much on the
3 minds of the East African cell of al Qaeda and Mohamed Odeh is
4 one of the prominent members of that cell and whatever it is
5 that's keeping him there, but he's telling even his wife that
6 they're going to respond 20 fold and the matter will take time
7 and preparation.
8 Other things that happened in September of 1997.
9 Ibrahim Eidarous, one of the three people that we talked about
10 with respect to London, Abu Abdallah Ibrahim and Daoud,
11 Ibrahim Eidarous, we talked about him in London. And what
12 happens in September of 1997 is that Eidarous goes from Baku,
13 Azerbaijan, we can see it on the map here, and he goes to
14 England, and that's where he becomes the cell leader of the
15 EIJ group in London.
16 And we know that because there is a ticket that is
17 found in his house, not the trunk of his car, government
18 Exhibit 1535. And you see a ticket there that shows a trip
19 from Baku to Amsterdam to London and it's the 24th of
20 September, 1997. And you remember, we read you the second
21 page of the letter, Government Exhibit 1523-T, and that's
22 where number 14, where Eidarous writes to Zawahiri, "call this
23 number, 956375892," and the next day the satellite phone
24 called that number on October 30th, 1997.
25 Well, in the first page of that letter, you see at
5369
1 the top: "Dear Brother Abu Mohamed," which is one of the
2 aliases for Ayman al Zawahiri, Government Exhibit 127, the
3 last alias Abu Mohamed, and what Eidarous writes in 1997,
4 having just arrived in England, he says, "It's necessary to
5 advise the brothers of the following: Firstly, to fear God.
6 Secondly, to cooperate with and obey the person in charge, for
7 this is the image that the people see." And you will see in a
8 moment that Ayman al Zawahiri complies with Eidarous and makes
9 sure everybody knows Eidarous is in charge in London.
10 With that, we move to January of 1998. In January
11 1998, Ayman al Zawahiri writes a letter to the EIJ leaders.
12 That's Government Exhibit 1518-T. You see at the bottom,
13 we'll highlight the text, 18/1/1998. Again, that's January
14 18th. We read the first part of this letter earlier.
15 "Honorable Brothers, peace be upon you and the mercy
16 of God." And then he appoints the people as deputies, and we
17 talked about Ahmad Hassan earlier. That's one of the people
18 involved in the passports with that person Dardaa.
19 Number 2, Zawahiri says, "We have arrived to a good
20 rough draft agreement with our friend here. However, the
21 third partner hasn't responded to it yet and the brothers
22 agree that the draft is good. We hope that God blesses it."
23 As we will see in a moment, ladies and gentlemen, on
24 February 23, 1998, barely a month after this letter goes out,
25 Bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri, who writes this letter, and a
5370
1 leader of another Egyptian group and two other groups issued
2 the February 1998 fatwah to kill American civilians. And here
3 you see Ayman al Zawahiri sharing with the leadership of EIJ
4 the rough draft of this fatwah.
5 Showing to you what I mentioned earlier, the joint
6 venture between al Qaeda and EIJ, a joint venture that will
7 play out in, among other places, in London, when Eidarous and
8 Abdel Bary help arrange to set forth the claims of
9 responsibility for the East Africa bombings.
10 On Government Exhibit 1519-T, what you see is a
11 letter from Ayman al Zawahiri. Down at the bottom, down at
12 the bottom, Abu Mohammed Nour Al Din, which is another one of
13 the aliases Zawahiri uses, the second from the bottom, and
14 it's to Brother Ezzat, who is one of the four people who had
15 been appointed a deputy. In fact, Zawahiri repeats that. I
16 am honored to tell you I have chosen you along with brothers
17 Mohammed Ali, Sami and Ahmad Hassan to work with me.
18 We'll have to come back to that. I pulled up the
19 wrong letter. I apologize.
20 If we go on to Government Exhibit 93, Government
21 Exhibit 93 is the Al-Quds article where the fatwah is
22 published. And you saw 93-T and we will go through it in a
23 moment, but this is a daily newspaper that is published in
24 London and this is where the fatwah is published. And what
25 you see is that the satellite phone that we talked about --
5371
1 the chart here is marked as 598 -- is instrumental in the
2 dissemination of this critical fatwah.
3 If we go first to Government Exhibit 95, this is a
4 summary chart of telephone calls made, as it says on top,
5 February 22, 1998. And what we'll do is we'll go through and
6 identify each of the numbers and then we'll go through the
7 chronology.
8 You see the third column talks about the originating
9 number, and of course the 682505331 is the satellite phone.
10 Some of the other numbers you see there, the 44, that's the
11 country code for England. 1812084411, that is Khalid al
12 Fawwaz's number. Remember, he's got the 4411, the 4422 and
13 the 4433.
14 Then you've got a couple of other numbers down there.
15 If you look at the number called, the fourth number, again the
16 441817418008, and these are all reflected off of exhibits that
17 have the telephone records, but that number belongs to
18 Al-Quds, the newspaper through which the fatwah is published.
19 The number below that is the 44956657875 number,
20 that's the mobile phone number that belongs to Ibrahim
21 Eidarous. And the way that you know that is that Eidarous'
22 name appears in Fawwaz's address book under that number and
23 the subscriber name is Ibrahim Sayid and his name is Ibrahim
24 Eidarous. So those are the numbers that you have on this
25 page.
5372
1 What you see is at 11:24 -- GMT is ostensibly London
2 time -- there's a call, a half-minute call from the satellite
3 phone to Fawwaz. And then you see about 45 minutes later,
4 Fawwaz calls back and he calls back again nine minutes later
5 to the satellite phone. Those are relatively short
6 conversations.
7 Then what you see is after that 12:51 conversation,
8 the third one in the row, right after that, a
9 three-and-a-half-minute conversation with the satellite phone,
10 Fawwaz hangs up and he calls Al-Quds. And then three minutes
11 after that, the satellite phone, basically while Fawwaz is
12 working things out with Al-Quds, the satellite phone calls
13 Ibrahim Eidarous. Calls the leader of the EIJ cell, in
14 London.
15 Then there's no activity again until 1:50 p.m., when
16 Al-Quds calls Fawwaz at his 4411 number. And a minute later,
17 Fawwaz calls Al-Quds back and then you see Al-Quds calls
18 Fawwaz back. They're trading calls back and forth, very brief
19 calls, less than even half a minute.
20 Then at 40:03, the third from the bottom, Fawwaz
21 calls the satellite phone again, and 40 minutes later the
22 satellite phone calls Fawwaz back. And then at 5:25 they call
23 Fawwaz back again. If you go to the next page of Government
24 Exhibit 95, between 5:28 and 5:49 p.m. you will see a flurry
25 of calls.
5373
1 At 5:28, Fawwaz calls the satellite phone. At 5:29,
2 right afterwards, he calls Al-Quds. And then right after
3 that, Fawwaz calls the satellite phone again, and then right
4 after that he calls Al-Quds again. These go between here.
5 Then the satellite phone calls Fawwaz back at 5:45 and there's
6 one last call, one last making of the arrangements between
7 Fawwaz and Al-Quds at 5:47 p.m.
8 And then you see at 5:49 p.m. Al-Quds places a 30.7
9 minute phone call to the satellite phone on February 22, 1998,
10 the day before the Al-Quds publishes the fatwah. They're
11 dictating, talking about, discussing this fatwah, the day
12 before Al-Quds obliges and publishes the fatwah.
13 And then what you see is virtually right after that
14 call ends, the satellite phone calls Ibrahim Eidarous, the EIJ
15 leader. So you have got Khalid al Fawwaz, the al Qaeda person
16 who was in Nairobi, the al Qaeda person who was replaced by
17 Wadih El Hage when al Fawwaz left Kenya after he got arrested,
18 he's in touch with the satellite phone and he's brokering the
19 arrangement between the al Qaeda headquarters in Afghanistan
20 and Al-Quds, who will publish the fatwah, and at the same time
21 you have got the EIJ component part of this fatwah speaking
22 with the satellite phone as they are working out the
23 arrangement to disseminate this critical message.
24 And then what you see is another phone call at 6:36
25 p.m. to a number we haven't talked about yet from Fawwaz. You
5374
1 have the al Qaeda/EIJ relationship played out in London.
2 Fawwaz speaks to that number 956375892. And you may remember
3 that's the number that you Eidarous had written Ayman al
4 Zawahiri to call in October of 1997. And you see the five
5 calls on October 30, 1997. That's the number that belongs to
6 the third person in London to keep an eye on, Adel Abdel Bary.
7 You know that that's his number because Adel Abdel Bary's
8 number appears in Eidarous's phone book with that number and
9 in Khalid al Fawwaz's phone book with that number, that
10 375892.
11 So they're all talking together, and on the next day,
12 the very first call in the morning, the day that the fatwah is
13 published, Government Exhibit 96, at 9:15, Ibrahim Eidarous
14 calls Adel Abdel Bary. The EIJ people call the next morning
15 when Al-Quds publishes the fatwah. And if you go to the very
16 end of the first page there, you see a series of calls to an
17 0087 number, which is actually subscribed to Adel Abdel Bary's
18 real name.
19 You see six calls, five or six calls so Khalid al
20 Fawwaz at 4 in the afternoon, and then the next page there are
21 three more calls and then you see from a different number,
22 from an 8904 number as opposed to the 0087 number, Abdel Bary
23 sends a fax to Khalid al Fawwaz. The 443 number is the fax
24 number.
25 So, remember the calls take place the day the fatwah
5375
1 is published and then he sends a fax less than a minute the
2 day that the fatwah is published by Al-Quds. So what is it
3 that the fatwah says? Let's look at Government Exhibit 93-2.
4 This is a fatwah that, unlike the August 1996
5 declaration, is to the point. It doesn't go on for many
6 pages. You see at the top there, the portion that is being
7 highlighted of the translation, that it is Al-Quds, February
8 23, 1998. And you see the signatories to this fatwah, and the
9 first one is Usama Bin Laden, the next one is Ayman al
10 Zawahiri, and then there are three other groups that are
11 mentioned there.
12 And on the second page of this translation you see
13 about two-thirds of the way down the statement is made: "The
14 ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and
15 military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do
16 it in any country."
17 So now the group has changed again and now what it
18 says is, we're going to be explicit: The ruling is to kill
19 civilians and military. The ruling is to kill the Americans.
20 It is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it.
21 And what are the twin purposes of this? The group
22 tells you, the group who signs the fatwah. In order to
23 liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque from their
24 grip and in order to liberate the al-Aqsa mosque and the holy
25 mosque from their grip.
5376
1 We will compare this later on, ladies and gentlemen,
2 but when the group claims responsibility for the bombings in
3 Nairobi and in Dar es Salaam, they name the operations after
4 these twin goals. The Nairobi operation is called Holy Kabba,
5 the Holy Mosque, and the Dar es Salaam operation is called
6 Operation al-Aqsa, the twin goals that they say support the
7 killing, the ruling to kill American civilians and military
8 wherever they can be found.
9 Ladies and gentlemen, as I mentioned, this is
10 explicit. There's no nuance to this. Bin Laden, Bin Laden,
11 signs this document and he excludes nobody from this fatwah.
12 He doesn't make any distinction for innocent Americans
13 because, in his view, there are no innocent Americans. He
14 puts a target on the back of every American, whether the
15 American wears a uniform, whether the American is a diplomat,
16 works for a diplomat, it doesn't matter. They are targets and
17 it is a duty and he gives the reasons why.
18 That is on February 23, 1998. Now, the same day that
19 this fatwah is published, Harun, the former El Hage deputy,
20 Harun the person who said we are just the implementers, Harun
21 buys a ticket on February 23, 1998 to go from Khartoum, Sudan
22 to Nairobi, and you see this in Government Exhibit 921. So
23 Bin Laden and others say we're going to kill American
24 civilians and Harun gets a ticket to go down to Nairobi from
25 Sudan. That's February.
5377
1 Now we turn to March 1998. The ink isn't even dry on
2 the fatwah, ladies and gentlemen, and what Odeh tells the FBI
3 agents who interview him is that there is a meeting, and what
4 he said to the agents was that he went to Mombasa as part of
5 his furniture business and that he had a meeting, that there
6 was a meeting that Saleh called, and that Odeh, Saleh, Ahmed
7 the Egyptian, and Harun, they meet. And during this meeting,
8 according to what Odeh told the agents, that Saleh said that
9 he had just returned from Afghanistan and that the word was
10 that they had to start getting people out of Kenya so that
11 people had to get their affairs in order and start getting
12 documents. That is what the defendant Odeh told the agent.
13 In March of 1998, he, Saleh, Harun, and Ahmed the Egyptian are
14 told that al Qaeda wants people to start getting their affairs
15 in order and they're going to have to go back to leave Kenya.
16 The other thing that happens in March of 1998,
17 according to what Khalfan Khamis Mohamed told Agent Perkins,
18 is it was in March or April of 1998 that Mustafa Fadhl,
19 Mustafa Fadhl approached Khalfan Khamis Mohamed about doing a
20 Jihad job. And what Khafan Khamis Mohamed said is that he
21 would do that.
22 Now, the mission was not determined -- he was not
23 told of the mission at that time, but he knew that it was a
24 Jihad job and he accepted it, and what he told Agent Perkins
25 is that he did find out that the target was the American
5378
1 Embassy and that he found out the week before the bombing.
2 And at some --
3 MR. RICCO: Your Honor, I object and request an
4 instruction on the manner in which Khalfan Khamis Mohamed's
5 statement can be used.
6 THE COURT: Khalfan Khamis Mohamed's statement?
7 MR. RICCO: Yes.
8 THE COURT: To the agent after his arrest?
9 MR. RICCO: Yes.
10 THE COURT: Was received in evidence solely against
11 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed.
12 MR. KARAS: Thank you, your Honor.
13 Now, in March of 1998, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed is
14 living at 22 Kidigalo Street, and you know that from Abdel
15 Salun, who was the next door neighbor at Kidigalo Street, and
16 the landlord who rented the Kidigalo Street apartment to K.K.
17 Mohamed. If we could display Government Exhibit 1400A, that
18 is place where Khalfan Khamis Mohamed was living since
19 January, according to those two witnesses that I just
20 mentioned to you.
21 And at some point during that time Abdel Salun,
22 remember that somebody by the name of Hussein shows up and
23 begins to leave with Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Abdel Salun
24 identified this picture as the Hussein. Mustafa Fadhl, the
25 person who is the al Qaeda member in the East African cell,
5379
1 the person who was referred to Khalid in the new policy
2 reports that El Hage brought back.
3 At some point, what Abdel Salun told you was that
4 Hussein, as he knew him, was joined by Hussein's wife and his
5 two children. And you learned there name Anas and Yusr. Now,
6 in April, the plot is in full gear. Once again, Odeh admits
7 to the agents that there was a meeting in Witu this time, and
8 what he told the agents was that Mustafa Fadhl came to see him
9 in Witu in April.
10 And Fadhl once again discussed these instructions
11 about al Qaeda people leaving Kenya, and in particular, Odeh
12 said that he and Fadhl discussed the February 1998 fatwah and
13 whether or not it was right to do this fatwah because the
14 United States was so powerful and that some in the leadership
15 in al Qaeda questioned the fatwah, but in the end they wounded
16 up supporting it. That's in April of 1998.
17 In Nairobi, meanwhile, in April of 1998, Harun rents
18 the location at 43 Runda Estates in Nairobi, and you actually
19 heard from Tamara Ratemo, the landlord, who talked about the
20 meetings that she had and discussions she had with Harun. One
21 of the things that Harun told Ms. Ratemo was that Harun said
22 that he would be having businessmen coming to conduct
23 business, he mentioned the businessmen would be from Dubai,
24 and the other things he asked her to do was to make
25 arrangements so that the phone at 43 Runda Estates could be
5380
1 used to make international calls.
2 And you may remember that she said that she would
3 have to go to the telephone and ostensibly guarantee that the
4 phone would be paid for, and she specifically gave you the
5 telephone number for 43 Runda Estates during 1998. The number
6 she gave you was 512430. 512430. And you are going to see
7 that that is the number from which the defendant Al-'Owhali is
8 going to call Yemen before he carries out the bombing, and you
9 are going to see that the cell phone that was used in Dar es
10 Salaam among the members of the bomb plot called that number,
11 512430, in the days that preceded the bombing establishing the
12 connection between the Dar es Salaam and the Nairobi bombings.
13 Now, we won't display it, but there was a lease,
14 Government Exhibit 568, for the 43 Runda Estates. And we'll
15 show you some of the pictures so you can get an idea of what
16 the place looked like. Government Exhibit 567A and then
17 Government Exhibit 567C. You see 43 and you see the walls and
18 the gates and you see the gate again in 567E. Again, a
19 secluded place, a place in which the group could construct its
20 bomb, carry out its activities, and follow through on its plot
21 to bomb the embassies.
22 And you see and you heard some of the evidence, and
23 we'll talk about some of the evidence where the FBI went to 43
24 Runda Estates within two weeks of the bombing and they did a
25 couple of searches there. They did numerous of the swabbings
5381
1 that the agents told you about with those cotton swabs and
2 they took some soil samples and they found a few other items.
3 Now, Government Exhibit 787 is the summary chart that
4 Kelly Mount testified to. Remember, she's the chemist and you
5 see the results of the testing on the swabs. The control swab
6 tested negative and the four other swabbings of a table top in
7 43 Runda Estates test positive or PETN and TNT.
8 And in Government Exhibit 788, which is a three-page
9 summary of the results of the testing of the items, you see
10 the swabbings repeatedly test positive for PETN and TNT, and
11 you also see that there was the presence of aluminum found.
12 You may remember that the defendant Mohamed Al-'Owhali told
13 Agent Gaudin that they had in fact used aluminum powder as
14 part of the bomb. The forensics results confirm what it was
15 that Mohamed Al-'Owhali said to Agent Gaudin.
16 The other thing that was found at 43 Runda Estates
17 was a Time Magazine article and Mitchell Hollars, the FBI
18 fingerprint specialist, testified that Government Exhibit 750,
19 which is the Time Magazine article, had a fingerprint for
20 Harun -- Harun, the person who rented the bomb factory; Harun,
21 who worked as Wadih El Hage's deputy; Harun, who was the
22 person who wrote the security reports that you saw earlier.
23 Now, in Tanzania, Khalfan Khamis Mohamed and Mustafa
24 Fadhl, going by the name Hussein, are living together and
25 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed told Agent Perkins that what they did
5382
1 at 22 Kidigalo is they would store the TNT and they would
2 store some of the other components of the bomb. And one of
3 the things that the FBI recovered after the fact, you may
4 recall, was this red carpet that Abdel Ihib talked about
5 seeing in the house after Khalfan Khamis Mohamed left. And
6 1401-P is a photo of that red carpet.
7 And Government Exhibit 1462 is the summary chart of
8 the results of the chemists who did the work on the Dar es
9 Salaam exhibits. And you see down at the bottom that the red
10 carpet, 1401, and there was also some foam padding, Government
11 Exhibit 1402, tested positive for TNT and PETN.
12 The other thing that happens in April of 1998 is
13 Khalfan Khamis Mohamed applies for a Tanzania passport not in
14 his name but in the name of Suheil Nassur Maleek, and he told
15 Agent Perkins that he applied for the passport -- excuse me,
16 that the got the passport after it was that he was told about
17 the Jihad mission.
18 Now we move to May of 1998, May 6th, and you can
19 see -- let's look at Government Exhibit 901. Government
20 Exhibit 901 is a Yemen passport. If we could turn that
21 around, it's a Yemen passport with Al-'Owhali's photograph on
22 it. And the name is not Mohamed Al-'Owhali, it's Khalid Salim
23 Saleh Bin Rashid and he purports to be a merchant here and the
24 date of issue is 6 May 1998.
25 Now this passport, ladies and gentlemen, was found in
5383
1 the residence of Harun in the Comoros after the bombing, and
2 of course it makes sense, as we'll discover, because Mohamed
3 Al-'Owhali was not supposed to survivor the attack. So Harun
4 in collecting the items. Harun is making sure there is no
5 trail so he collects these items and he brings them with him.
6 Of course, he can't take them with him to
7 Afghanistan, so he leaves them behind in the Comoros,
8 comfortable with the notion that he has erased any trail that
9 will connect him and the others to the bombing. And what you
10 see, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, once again, is the
11 critical nature of fake passports for the group.
12 This is how they get people like Al-'Owhali into
13 places like Kenya to carry out operations. And to do that you
14 need to have facilitators, people who can take care of fake
15 passports and people who can arrange for messages and the
16 travel of others. And as we talked about earlier, that's one
17 of the roles that Wadih El Hage played. Now, we're not saying
18 he had anything to do with this passport, but the point is
19 that this is how al Qaeda operates and this is how it is that
20 Al-'Owhali was able, in part, to carry out his mission.
21 On May 7th, in London, Abu Hafs goes by the name
22 Dr. Atef, writes Khalid al Fawwaz, and you see Government
23 Exhibit 1636-T, which is a translation of a document found in
24 Khalid al Fawwaz's house. And you see at the top there the
25 4433 number I mentioned to you. That is Khalid al Fawwaz's
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1 fax number, and what Abu Hafs says on the 7th of May --
2 remember, you got to invert the numbers -- May 7th, 1998, he
3 says: "It has been sent to you the fatwah of the Ulma of
4 Afghanistan and it is a very important and very strong fatwah
5 and also it has been sent with an introduction of the fatwah
6 and comments about the fatwa signed by the Sheik," referring
7 to Bin Laden.
8 "Please send it to the Arab press, Al-Quds, Al Sharq
9 Al-Awssat, Al-Moharer, Al-Hayat and the news agencies,
10 satellite broadcasting agencies and others.
11 "And if it's possible to publish the fatwah and the
12 introduction one day, and the comments on the second, this
13 will be better, especially in Al-Quds."
14 Now, Al-Quds is the same paper that published the
15 February 1998 fatwah. And let's move to Government Exhibit
16 1602, please, if we could. Found in Khalid al Fawwaz's
17 residence, 94 Dewsbury Road, this is going to be -- this is a
18 translation of what appears. And you see the translation,
19 Al-Quds ago Al-Arabi newspaper, May 14, 1998. And the title
20 is "Clergymen in Afghanistan Issue a fatwah calling for the
21 Removal of American Forces from the Gulf. Saudi opposition
22 member Usama Bin Laden supports it."
23 So once again, Al-Quds obliges Bin Laden, publishes
24 another fatwah. Once again Khalid al Fawwaz is in the middle
25 of making sure that this gets disseminated, and you see that
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1 Bin Laden expresses his thanks to the editor of Al-Quds in
2 Government Exhibit 1634-T.
3 Down at the bottom you see a signature of Usama Bin
4 Laden, and the letter is addressed to "the well-known
5 journalist Mr. Abdel Barry Atwan, owner of Al-Quds Al-Arabi
6 Newspaper.
7 "I take pleasure in congratulating you for your
8 strong journalistic views towards the truth, and the
9 steadfastness of your newspaper to serve the struggle, and the
10 use of the pen to defend the nation's causes and its holy
11 places, and the carrying out of its task to inform, truly
12 without being touched by elements of temptation and
13 seduction."
14 Skipping that next sentence he writes, "As we
15 congratulate you on this great achievement, the efforts to
16 defend the nation's causes and support her defenders, I would
17 like to thank you personally for your interest on the news in
18 the Arab Peninsula and the country Al-Haramin (Saudi), as well
19 as your deep understanding of the ongoing struggle between the
20 good and bad in the area, siding with truth, and supporting
21 it, is a situation which will not be forgotten by the people
22 in the area." And it's dated May 14, 1998, when Al-Quds
23 published the fatwah that Atef, Abu Hafs, wanted to have
24 published.
25 If you take a quick look at the original of this, the
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1 Arabic original, Government Exhibit 1634, if we could invert
2 that and then focus on the fax header -- you see Bin Laden's
3 signature there, by the way. If you focus on the fax header
4 you see that Kandahar Telecommunications, AFG, 837655.
5 And you may remember when we were going through
6 Khalid al Fawwaz's address book there was a listing for
7 Dr. Mohamed Atef. There was one that had a listing for the
8 satellite phone number, and there was one that had a listing
9 with the number 83765. And as we talked about earlier,
10 Kandahar is one of the southern provinces of Afghanistan. So
11 the communications are coming directly from al Qaeda
12 headquarters. They are going to London, something that you
13 will see later on as we go through the claims of
14 responsibility.
15 Now, on May 10, we don't have to pull it up, but
16 Government Exhibit 903 is the Harun passport, and there's also
17 some tickets that are found in his house in the Comoros. And
18 there's another trip that Harun takes back to Kenya on May
19 10th. And on May 18th -- moving to May 18th, if we can pull
20 up the passport for Mohamed Al-'Owhali, Government Exhibit
21 901, in that passport, ladies and gentlemen, you will see a
22 trip where Mohamed Al-'Owhali flies, he goes from Yemen to
23 Pakistan, and there's going to be an entry stamp in Pakistan
24 on May 18.
25 THE COURT: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll call it a
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1 day. It's been a while since I reminded you, so let me remind
2 you, please, not to read, listen, watch anything which has to
3 do with this case, anything remotely related to this case or
4 with respect to McVeigh.
5 Have a pleasant evening.
6 (Jury not present)
7 THE COURT: My comment with respect to remaining in
8 the courtroom only referred to the people at the bar, not
9 spectators. They can feel free to leave if they wish.
10 Mr. Karas, how is your timing?
11 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we're still on pace to finish
12 between two to two and a half days.
13 THE COURT: Two to two and a half days. Certainly
14 all day tomorrow?
15 MR. KARAS: I believe we will go through all day
16 tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finish by tomorrow but I can't say
17 for sure.
18 THE COURT: Because when we finish, we --
19 MR. SCHMIDT: We'll expect to be going on Thursday.
20 THE COURT: Thursday, okay.
21 There was some issue that you raised, I'm sorry if I
22 was very abrupt, but we did schedule 9:45 and we had been --
23 we try not to be late.
24 MR. DRATEL: I have the page and line numbers on the
25 two pieces of testimony. The Khalifa --
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1 THE COURT: You're referring to which document?
2 MR. DRATEL: This is the Grand Jury testimony.
3 THE COURT: The Grand Jury testimony.
4 MR. FITZGERALD: May I make one suggestion? If he
5 gives me the page and line numbers, we can discuss it. If we
6 take a five-minute break, we can tell your Honor where we're
7 at rather than have your Honor endure our discussion.
8 THE COURT: That's an offer that would be difficult
9 to refuse.
10 We'll take a five-minute recess.
11 (Recess)
12 THE COURT: There is an application to strike certain
13 portions of the Grand Jury testimony?
14 MR. FITZGERALD: I'm glad your Honor is sitting down.
15 We've reached an agreement.
16 THE COURT: And just for the record, what is being
17 stricken?
18 MR. FITZGERALD: From the 1997 Grand Jury transcript
19 of El Hage, it would be page 72, line 23, through page 90,
20 line 15, which concerns the episode in Arizona with the
21 preacher, and then from page 120, line 26, through page 121,
22 line 26, which corresponds to Ethiopia.
23 THE COURT: It doesn't affect the instructions or the
24 language of the indictment or the verdict form?
25 MR. DRATEL: There is parts of the indictment, the
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1 introductory portion.
2 MR. FITZGERALD: We can work out the language after
3 court today on anything that has to be struck from the
4 indictment. It is not going to affect the charge to the jury.
5 It is not going to affect summation.
6 THE COURT: There is something in the background
7 section that is a reference to it?
8 MR. DRATEL: The perjury, the preamble to the perjury
9 counts has a mention of it.
10 MR. FITZGERALD: We'll agree on a redaction tonight,
11 your Honor. That shouldn't be a problem.
12 THE COURT: One other thing, on the subject of the
13 language of the indictment, Count Four, which is the
14 conspiracy to destroy buildings and property of the United
15 States, on page 36 has the language "and attempt to damage and
16 destroy." I just want to make sure that that was intended,
17 since you have stricken "attempt" in other places.
18 MR. FITZGERALD: I think it's conspiracy. It's only
19 conspiracy that they would damage or attempt to damage, but
20 not on the substantive counts.
21 THE COURT: That's an intentional inclusion?
22 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes.
23 THE COURT: Very well.
24 Anything that has to be addressed before the jury
25 comes in tomorrow?
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1 MR. DRATEL: No, your Honor, but just to alert the
2 Court, we have prepared from Mr. El Hage the stipulations that
3 we put in, the 13th stipulation, the chart, which I gave to
4 the government this morning. They just want time to review
5 it, the descriptions and all of that, and we can hopefully get
6 that --
7 THE COURT: That can be received outside the presence
8 of the jury and then I will simply add a sentence in the
9 charge telling them that is the defense counterpart to
10 Government Exhibit 7.
11 MR. DRATEL: Thank you.
12 THE COURT: We're adjourned until 10 a.m. tomorrow.
13 (Adjourned to 10:00 a.m. on May 2, 2001.)
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