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01 March 2001
FBI Agent Recounts Confession of Bombing Trial Defendant
by
Judy Aita
Washington File Staff Writer
New York -- Testimony in the trial of four men accused in the bombings
of two U.S. embassies in East Africa has begun to focus on the
individual actions of al Qaeda members as they planned the bombings
and then their escape from Africa.
Testimony from three witnesses described surveillance activities in
Nairobi, an unusual nighttime fishing operation in Mombasa, Kenya, and
the confession of Mohamed Sadeek Odeh to the U.S. Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) and Kenyan officials.
The confession was the subject of legal battles over the past months
as Odeh's lawyers tried to keep the government from using the
confession, claiming that Odeh did not have a lawyer present and was
not advised of his rights. Judge Leonard Sand rejected the argument
and on February 27, FBI Special Agent John Anticev took the stand to
describe his interrogation of Odeh in a Kenyan jail and recount Odeh's
confession.
Sent to Nairobi from New York after the embassy bombing, Anticev said
that he began interviewing Odeh, who was in the custody of the Kenyan
police, on August 15. The questioning continued until Odeh was brought
to the United States on August 27. The interviews were conducted in
English, usually in the presence of two other Americans and three
Kenyan officials.
One especially riveting part of the confession, Anticev said, was
Odeh's description of the urgent activity as the al Qaeda members were
ordered to prepare to leave Kenya and the day-to-day comings and
goings Odeh saw between August 1 and August 6 as the members took care
of business and fled Nairobi.
Odeh told the FBI agent that in March 1998 "Saleh" (Abdullah Ahmed
Abdullah, who has also been indicted but is not a defendant in this
trial), Ahmed the Egyptian (Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali, also indicted),
and Harun (Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, also indicted) met with Mustafa
Mohamed Fadhil (also indicted), who had just returned from
Afghanistan. Mustafa told the group that bin Laden wanted the al Qaeda
members in Kenya to "start getting their affairs in order and getting
the documents" they needed to leave.
They also discussed bin Laden's 1998 fatwah against the United States.
Mustafa said that there had been much discussion in Afghanistan about
"taking on the U.S. as an enemy" because the U.S. was so powerful "it
might not be good to do this. But then all went along," Anticev said
Odeh told him.
As the months passed, each time he met Saleh or other al Qaeda
members, the direction to get ready to leave became more and more
urgent, Odeh said in his confession. Forty days before the August 7
bombing he was told that "bin Laden had been able to unite other
Islamic terrorist groups to fight against the U.S. and make a front to
fight the U.S."
Anticev told of the day-to-day events starting August 1, 1998, that
Odeh recounted for his questioners:
- On August 1 three al Qaeda cell leaders left Kenya for Afghanistan
and Odeh was yelled at for not having his passport in order. He was
given an expired passport of a Yemeni and told to get it updated
immediately because he had to be out of Kenya by August 6. "I have
never seen anything so urgent before," Odeh said. The al Qaeda members
"felt something big would happen real soon."
- On August 2 Odeh visited his wife's relatives to settle his
business affairs. He was told Saleh was leaving Mombasa for Nairobi
and he should return in order to see Saleh before he left. However,
Saleh left before the two could meet.
- On Monday, August 3, Odeh went to get the expired passport fixed at
the immigration office, bought an airline ticket to travel from
Nairobi to Karachi, and received instructions to meet Saleh at the
Hilltop Hotel in Nairobi. He then boarded a bus for an overnight trip
to Nairobi.
- On August 4 Odeh checked into the Hilltop Hotel and met other al
Qaeda members, including Saleh, who gave him a razor and told him to
shave his beard "so he would conceal he is a Muslim when traveling."
He learned that Abdel Rahman (Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah, who is also
indicted), an al Qaeda explosives expert, had been staying at the
hotel for two months. Rahman and Harun (Fazul Abdullah Mohammed,
another member wanted in the bombing) left the hotel that evening and
stayed away all night. Although "nobody talked about anything, even
then the climate was urgent," Odeh said.
- Over the next days, the al Qaeda members left the hotel in various
combinations "to do a job," sometimes staying all night.
- On August 5 Odeh stayed around the hotel or went out to buy
clothing and travel items on Moi Avenue, the street on which the
embassy is located. Saleh and Harum left the hotel and stayed out all
night.
- On August 6 when Saleh and Harum returned at 9 a.m., Saleh was
"very happy, in good spirits," Odeh said. Saleh said he had news from
Kandahar, the location of al Qaeda headquarters, that "all people were
evacuated ... we are expecting retaliation from U.S. Navy planes,
missile attacks." At 3 p.m. Abdul Rahman and Saleh left on a Kenyan
Airlines flight to Karachi. Before Saleh left he gave $500 to each of
the al Qaeda members at the hotel "to be used for bribes and personal
expenses" as they left Kenya.
- Odeh himself left Nairobi August 6 on a 10 p.m. flight. When he
arrived in Pakistan he was detained at the airport for having bad
documents and eventually returned to Kenya on August 14, where he then
met with the FBI agent and Kenyan officials.
During his questioning Odeh maintained that he did not know about the
bombing in advance, but he speculated on who he thought built the bomb
based on his contacts while in Nairobi. He said that he thought Harun
and Abdel Rahman built the bomb at Harun's house and the explosives
"could have been" smuggled into Nairobi in boxes of lobsters, Anticev
said.
Upset that so many Kenyan civilians were injured and killed, Odeh
blamed Saleh for making a "big mistake" by not getting the back of the
pick-up truck closer to the building. Instead, he said, the explosion
ricocheted off the cab toward the secretarial college next door to the
embassy, causing that building to collapse, the FBI agent testified.
The reason Odeh talked to U.S. officials, Anticev said, was because
"the people he was with were pushing him, pushing him. They are all
gone, leaving him with big problems."
When they first met Odeh, the Americans advised him of his rights
using a form that the FBI uses when dealing with suspects overseas,
Anticev said. "We told him that he had the right to remain silent,
that anything he said would be used against him ... that if he were in
the United States he would have the right to have an attorney present
and, if he were in the United States, if you could not afford an
attorney one would be appointed to you."
Odeh was also told that the Americans did not have a U.S. attorney
with them for him and Kenyan law did not provide for an attorney for
him at that point in the investigation, Anticev said. Odeh was told he
had three options: not talk to anyone; if he wanted an attorney the
Americans would leave and he would be with the Kenyan authorities; or
he could talk to the Americans and Kenyans with no attorney. Odeh
offered a fourth alternative, the agent said, to talk to the U.S.
authorities alone.
When the officials returned after discussing the situation, Odeh said
that "he figured that if he spoke to the U.S. authorities alone that
we would tell the Kenyan authorities anyway, so he figured why not
just talk to both of them at the same time," Anticev said.
At first he didn't want to sign the FBI form acknowledging that he was
read his rights and would talk to the Americans, preferring instead to
make "small talk to get to know each other," the special agent said.
Eventually, he did sign the form and the formal questioning began.
During the course of the interview Odeh said he was a Palestinian born
in Saudi Arabia and raised in Jordan, and had other names -- Abu
Yasser, Noureldine, Marwan, and Abu Moath. While at a Philippine
university in 1986 studying architecture and engineering he became
active in Islamic societies; he also became interested in the concept
of jihad in Afghanistan. When his father sent him $1,000 for his
thesis study, Odeh, on the advice of a religious scholar, took the
money and went to Pakistan to join those fighting the Soviets in
Afghanistan, the agent said.
Odeh said he was trained at the Farooq camp in firearms, map reading,
explosives, and anti-tank an anti-aircraft weapons. While at the camp
he was approached by al Qaeda members to join the organization but he
decided against joining at that time, the agent said.
After working at the front, recovering from wounds during the
fighting, and taking Islamic studies, Odeh was approached again to
join al Qaeda. That time he decided to join because "compared to other
groups al Qaeda was Islamically pure and ... the leadership in other
groups might do things that are not Islamically correct," Anticev
said. He took the bayat pledging "his allegiance to Usama bin Laden
and that he will follow his orders as long as those orders are
Islamically correct." As a member of al Qaeda he was paid yearly and
had received his salary up to and including 1998.
He said that al Qaeda used "code words" such as "tools" to mean
"weapons," "potato" to mean "hand grenades," and "goods" to mean "fake
documents." Odeh eventually settled in Mombasa, where he set up a
fishing business to help pay the expenses for other al Qaeda members.
He spent several months in Somalia in 1997, and then returned to Kenya
and set up a furniture business with his brother-in-law in Witu,
Anticev said.
Odeh also said that he was told in 1998 that "Usama bin Laden wanted
to do an operation against the U.S. in Kenya, because he didn't like
Kenya and the Kenyan people." But Odeh and Saleh did not want to see
that happen because they liked living in Kenya, Anticev said.
During questioning Odeh was asked about three different types of
operations and if he would participate in them. They included an
operation against U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, attacking a U.S.
building in Kenya if only Americans were killed, or attacking a U.S.
building outside Kenya if only Americans were killed, Anticev said.
Odeh replied that if it was Islamically correct and ordered by bin
Laden "he would have no choice" but to attack a U.S. building outside
Kenya, otherwise he would check if they were Islamically correct
because "I do not follow blindly."
Also testifying February 27 was Kibarua Mjitta, a 44-year-old Kenyan
civil servant who has worked for the Fisheries Department for 21
years. He has worked in Kilifi since 1988 writing monthly reports,
collecting statistics, and inspecting fish to make sure they are fit
for human consumption. He said he met Odeh in 1996 and saw him about
once or twice a month thereafter in connection with Odeh's fish
business.
As a fish dealer, Odeh had to show Mjitta a fish movement permit, a
fish trader's license, and a daily fisherman's permit to bring fish
from Kiunga and Lamu in the Khost. Odeh, he said, only had a permit to
move fish, not to catch fish. In addition, he said, he noticed there
was something unusual about Odeh's business.
"The problem was that he was loading off the fish at night," Mjitta
said. Cargo is usually off-loaded during the day when the customs
office and Fisheries Department can check papers and cargo and dock
workers are around.
He said that after dock workers complained, he spoke to Odeh, telling
him that he couldn't off-load at night, excluding the workers and
failing to allow the fisheries agent to collect data and inspect the
fish.
After he talked to Odeh, Mjitta said, the night operations stopped.
L'Houssaine Kherchtou, a Moroccan who has pled guilty to a conspiracy
that included killing Americans and is in the U.S. under the witness
protection program with his wife and three daughters, testified for a
fourth day February 27.
In testimony last week, Kherchtou said that he joined al Qaeda in the
early 1990s after he went to Afghanistan to help fight against
Afghanistan's communist rulers. He was eventually sent by al Qaeda to
Nairobi to become a pilot. While in Nairobi he also helped al Qaeda
members passing through, going to or from Somalia to help the warring
factions there fight against the United Nations, especially U.S.
peacekeepers. At one point in 1995, three al Qaeda members used his
apartment to develop surveillance photographs. He identified the
defendant Wadih El Hage as his "boss" in Nairobi and also lived in an
apartment behind El Hage's house.
Through his questioning of Kherchtou, Sam Schmidt, an attorney for El
Hage, attempted to stress that not all those who were associated with
bin Laden were members of al Qaeda. El Hage has maintained that he was
not a member of al Qaeda but merely a business associate of bin
Laden's, an extraordinarily trustworthy person to bin Laden because he
was one of the first in Afghanistan.
However, asked by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, "Did you have an
understanding of whether or not Wadih El Hage was a member of al
Qaeda?" Kherchtou answered: "Yes ... that he is from al Qaeda."
When he was initially questioned in Kenya, Kherchtou said, he was in
jail and "did not tell him the entire truth" when he said that he did
not know whether El Hage was a member or simply someone who worked
with al Qaeda people.
"Are you saying to us that in 1998 when you said to this person that
you did not know if Wadih el Hage was al Qaeda, that you were lying to
him. Is that your testimony now?" Schmidt asked.
"Yes," Kherchtou said.
Pressed by Schmidt, Kherchtou said that he did not know whether El
Hage had taken the bayat to al Qaeda, but "when I have indicated or
mentioned that he is a member of the al Qaeda, it was in relation or
in reference to the way that we were relating to him and it was open
in how he handled matters."
"Persons who are not members of the al Qaeda, we cannot talk to them
openly as the way we address members of the al Qaeda and as the way we
addressed him," he said.
In addition to bin Laden, he said that Abu Hafs, who was head of the
military committee, and Ubaidah al Banshiri, who was killed in a ferry
accident on Lake Victoria, "were our leaders. We received orders from
these two people."
Abu Hafs also had "some special stature," he said. "That is why
everyone in al Qaeda agreed that Abu Hafs is a member of al Qaeda, a
head of al Qaeda."
Kherchtou said that after he moved to Sudan from Nairobi, he did crop
dusting for bin Laden and began working in Wadi Al Aqiq company, but
then remained at home when there was no work.
After bin Laden moved to Afghanistan from Sudan, Kherchtou said, he
found a job in an import/export company called Kaswah run by a
businessman named Abdouh Abdallah al Yemeni. While at Kaswah, he had
business dealings with El Hage regarding the import/export of leather,
sugar, seeds, and tanzanite.
Using an Arabic interpreter, Edward Wilford, an attorney for Odeh,
pressed Kherchtou on whether the interests of bin Laden and that of
the al Qaeda organization were always the same and Islamically
correct.
Asked if he would follow a fatwah issued by bin Laden on killing
innocent civilians, women and children, Kherchtou said. "I would not
have agreed." Before other members agreed, each, too, Kherchtou said,
"would look into his faith."
Kherchtou, who also identified Odeh as one of the fighters he met in
Afghanistan, said that Odeh was in the fishing business in Mombasa "to
support himself and others."
When he was detained in Kenya after the bombing, Kherchtou said, he
was kept in a small cell, four meters by four, with no bathroom, which
he shared with other prisoners for three days before he was
interrogated. He said the reputation of the Kenyan police for alleged
corruption and brutality had him worried.
Both Kherchtou and Odeh described al Qaeda operations as having four
phases, each conducted by a different group, which then would leave
after completing their mission: the first stage was surveillance or
intelligence-gathering; second, the leadership would study the
intelligence reports and decide whether to conduct the mission; third,
a supply and logistical group would gather whatever materials were
needed; and in the fourth stage the team who actually carried out the
operation would arrive.
Other defendants in addition to El Hage and Odeh are Mohamed Rashed
Daoud Al-'Owali, a Saudi Arabian, and Khalfan Khamis Mohamed, a
Tanzanian. The four are charged with conspiracy to kill U.S.
nationals; to murder, kidnap and maim U.S. nationals; and to destroy
U.S. national defense buildings in the bombings of the U.S. embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224, including 12 Americans, and
injured thousands. Al-'Owali and Mohamed are charged with conspiracy
to use weapons of mass destruction and face the death penalty if
convicted. They are part of a group of 22 charged in the embassy
bombings. Thirteen are at large, including bin Laden, who is thought
to be in Afghanistan.
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