- Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman laughed at the ease with which
his legal team improperly smuggled messages that allowed the Muslim extremist
to continue directing terrorist operations while serving a life sentence
in a Minnesota prison cell, according to a sealed FBI affidavit obtained
by The Smoking Gun.
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- Abdel-Rahman joked that "trained doves" were
transporting messages to his disciples. "I really would like that
they arrest those doves. I wish that one day I read, 'The FBI was able
to arrest the doves that are contacting the Sheikh.'" The convicted
terrorist then added, "as long as the government is using secret evidence
we will use secret doves." The FBI document provides the first detailed
account of the system by which the blind Egyptian cleric secretly exchanged
messages with fellow members of the Islamic Group (IG), a Mideast terror
organization in league with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and Egyptian Islamic
Jihad.
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- In April, lawyer Lynne Stewart, interpreter Mohammed
Yousry, and Ahmed Abdel Sattar, whom federal prosecutors describe as IG's
one-man "communications center," were charged with conspiring
to provide material support for a terrorist organization for their alleged
role in facilitating Abdel-Rahman communiques. All three have pleaded not
guilty. While Stewart and Yousry have been released on bond--$500,000 and
$750,000 respectively--Sattar is being held without bail. Citing a judicial
protective order covering the FBI affidavit, Susan Tipograph, Stewart's
attorney, declined today to answer TSG questions regarding the document.
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- The affidavit, prepared by agent Kimberley Whittle, a
Joint Terrorist Task Force member, appears to provide particularly damning
evidence against Stewart, the 62-year-old radical attorney who represented
Abdel-Rahman at his 1995 federal trial. The document also includes an intriguing
July 2001 exchange about the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole, which Abdel-Rahman
was told was done to secure his release from prison. [Follow the below
links to view excerpts from the sealed FBI affidavit.]
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- According to Whittle, during one prison visit with Abdel-Rahman--as
the convicted terrorist leader improperly dictated messages to Yousry in
Arabic--Stewart "made random comments out loud for the guards to hear
in order to conceal the real conversation" between the sheikh and
the interpreter. As Abdel-Rahman and Yousry conversed, Stewart interjected
stray statements like, "Yes, the uhm...I am talking to you about...him
going out on a, uh, chocolate eh...heart attack here," according to
the FBI affidavit. The document also alleges that, while prison guards
patrolled nearby, Stewart was observed "pretending to take notes on
her legal pad."
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- Stewart, Abdel-Rahman, and Yousry "shared laughs"
about the "fine acting job that she was doing in successfully tricking
the guards," according to the affidavit. Remarking on that performance,
a hidden government listening device recorded Stewart saying, "I can
get an award for it." Translating Stewart's flip comment, Yousry told
Abdel-Rahman, according to Whittle's affidavit, "She is saying, Your
Eminence, that she can get an award for acting (all three laugh). Alright,
fine now, they [the guards] are stepping back."
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- Because of U.S. government concerns that Abdel-Rahman
would try and pass messages while incarcerated, he has been barred from
communicating with virtually anyone, including family members. Known as
Special Administrative Measures (SAM), these restrictive conditions were
designed by the Department of Justice to protect "persons against
risk of death or serious bodily injury" by "significantly limiting
the inmate's ability to communicate (send or receive) terrorist information."
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- And while lawyers for Abdel-Rahman were allowed to meet
with him (and speak on the telephone), they were required to sign affirmations
agreeing to abide with SAM provisions before being granted access to Abdel-Rahman.
Those SAM rules note that attorneys could "only be accompanied by
translators for the purpose of communicating with inmate Abdel-Rahman concerning
legal matters."
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- But SAM restrictions did not stop Abdel-Rahman from attempting--often
successfully, it seems--to stay in touch with leaders of the Islamic Group,
for which he remains the militant organization's spiritual leader.
-
- Embracing a radical interpretation of Islam, IG seeks
to overthrow Egypt's government and replace it with an Islamic state, and
brands as "infidels" any individual, group, or country that does
not share its fundamentalist views (Israel and the U.S., of course, top
IG's hit list). The organization has close ties with al-Qaeda, and bin
Laden has frequently cited Abdel-Rahman's imprisonment as one of the many
reasons for his group's attacks. IG was implicated in the 1981 assassination
of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat and plotted the murder of his successor,
Hosni Mubarak. IG also took responsibility for the savage massacre of 58
tourists and four Egyptians visiting an archeological site in Luxor, Egypt
in November 1997. The killers left behind leaflets calling for the release
of Abdel-Rahman (one flyer was stuffed inside the body of a victim whose
torso was slit).
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- In October 1995, a federal jury convicted Abdel-Rahman,
63, of engaging in a seditious conspiracy that included the 1993 World
Trade Center attack and the foiled plot to bomb New York City landmarks,
including the United Nations and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. He was
also convicted of trying to arrange Mubarak's assassination. Sentenced
to life imprisonment plus 65 years, Abdel-Rahman was held, until recently,
at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester, Minnesota.
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- It was there that, in February 2000, FBI agents secretly
began videotaping Abdel-Rahman's legal visits (bugging of his telephone
calls with lawyers began in June 2000). The eavesdropping was conducted
under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which, in the name
of national security, authorizes secret electronic surveillance aimed at
gathering foreign intelligence. The initial Minnesota warrant came 15 months
after the FBI began FISA surveillance on the home telephone of Sattar,
whose e-mail and fax traffic was also later intercepted by government agents.
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- The sealed FBI affidavit, drafted in support of search
warrant applications, makes it clear that Sattar was the maypole around
which communication to and from the imprisoned Abdel-Rahman revolved. A
42-year-old Staten Island resident who worked as a paralegal during the
blind terrorist's federal trial, Sattar was in frequent contact with IG
leaders worldwide, including Rifa'i Taha Musa and Abdel-Rahman's son Mohammed.
In September 2000, Al Jazeera television broadcast an interview with bin
Laden, his deupty Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Musa, and Mohammed Abdel-Rahman, during
which the men "pledged jihad to free Sheikh Abdel-Rahman, among others,
from incarceration in the United States," according to the FBI document.
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- In February 2000, Sattar arranged a legal visit to Abdel-Rahman
for an unnamed lawyer (identified in the affidavit as "Attorney #2")
and Yousry, the interpreter. According to the FBI, Sattar had Yousry deliver
messages to Abdel-Rahman, who, in turn, dictated letters and communiques
to Yousry. On the agenda for the February visit was the delivery of a cryptic
message from Musa regarding a "poem" that needed to be read to
Abdel-Rahman. Musa also wanted Abdel-Rahman's opinion on the possible revocation
of an IG cease-fire that had been in effect since the Luxor massacre.
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- But the legal visit did not go as planned, the FBI affidavit
notes, because Abdel-Rahman was "uncomfortable speaking to Yousry
about IG matters in front of Attorney #2, who also spoke Arabic."
In a subsequent conversation with Mustafa Hamza, IG's Operations Chief,
Sattar said that the lawyer "would not allow the letter to be read
for fear that they would get caught" and "all visits would be
canceled if the authorities felt anything was wrong." Sattar, the
affidavit reported, told Hamza he "was very mad at Attorney #2 and
does not intend to send him to the next visit with Sheikh Abdel-Rahman."
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- Then, referring to Abdel-Rahman's other attorneys, Sattar
told Hamza, they "have no problems, I mean the Americans, they let
you say whatever you want, do what you want, write what you want."
When Sattar began arranging a mid-May legal visit, he called Yousry to
inform the interpreter that Stewart--and not Attorney #2--would be traveling
with him this time to Minnesota. It was during that visit that the FBI
recorded Stewart allegedly commenting on her acting abilities.
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- Attorney #2, though, did participate in a wiretapped
October 2000 conference call during which Abdel-Rahman discussed an IG
fatwah, issued in his name, that urged "the Muslim nation to fight
the Jews and to kill them wherever they are...Every Moslem should wage
Jihad against them." Though Abdel-Rahman had not actually authored
the fatwah, he did not want his followers to confirm or deny this fact,
since the controversy triggered by the fatwah "is good talk."
As for how the edict was delivered, Abdel-Rahman was also content to leave
that a mystery, prompting Attorney #2 to remark that the inmate had "trained
doves that transport messages." The lawyer then joked, "Am I
cleared to tell The New York Times about the doves?" He then noted,
"We better tell the government that if they stop using secret evidence
we will stop using doves."
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- The last prison visit detailed in the FBI affidavit occurred
in mid-July 2001. Stewart and Yousry traveled to Minnesota and met with
Abdel-Rahman over a two-day period. On July 13, Yousry told Abdel-Rahman
that "they" had paid $35,000 for a taxi cab, using money the
interpreter was holding. The FBI document offers no other details or insight
into the cab purchase. The interpreter then read a letter from Sattar addressing
the IG cease-fire and financial help provided to Abdel-Rahman's family.
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- According to the affidavit, Yousry then asked Stewart
if he could talk to Abdel-Rahman "about an issue relating to the bombing
of the U.S.S. Cole." Stewart consented, the document notes. Yousry
then reported that "some people" had spoken to Sattar about the
attack on the Navy destroyer, "and said that they did this operation
for Omar Abdel-Rahman so he could be released from prison." The October
2000 attack in Yemen killed 17 sailors. Yousry continued, saying that Sattar's
contacts asked him "to do some negotiations with the American government
and tell them, 'If [Rahman is] not released we'll execute another operation.'"
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- Abdel-Rahman advised that a lawyer, and not Sattar, should
handle any negotiations, otherwise Sattar "would be bitten by them,"
an apparent reference to law enforcement scrutiny. The FBI affidavit notes
that Stewart voiced agreement with Abdel-Rahman's analysis, adding that
she told Sattar "there was a time to be a hero, but that this was
not it."
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