NYT
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- The headquarters supervisor of the FBI's international terrorism operations section testified Tuesday he had never read an Aug. 18, 2001, memo in which an agent proposed a full criminal investigation of Zacarias Moussaoui as a possible terrorist airplane hijacker.
The now retired supervisor, Michael Rolince, was questioned by defense attorney Edward MacMahon during Moussaoui's sentencing trial. He was asked whether he had ever heard that Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui while he was taking pilot lessons in Minnesota, concluded the 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent was a terrorist planning to hijack a commercial jetliner.
''No,'' Rolince snapped.
Had he heard other conclusions by Samit about Moussaoui?
''No. What document are you reading?'' Rolince demanded.
Samit's Aug. 18 report ''sent to your office,'' MacMahon replied.
Called as a government witness, Rolince, a 31-year FBI veteran who retired last October, proved to be more valuable for attorneys defending the only man charged in this country in connection with al-Qaida's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Defense objections and rulings by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema barred Rolince from giving what prosecutors wanted most: a long listing of investigative steps the FBI could have taken if Moussaoui had admitted when he was arrested Aug. 16, 2001, all the facts he confessed to when pleading guilty last April.
Instead, defense attorney MacMahon was able to extract from Rolince more embarrassing revelations about FBI handling of terrorism intelligence before 9/11.
This was important because, to get a death penalty at this sentencing trial, the government must show that Moussaoui's lies upon arrest prevented the FBI from identifying 9/11 hijackers and the Federal Aviation Administration from altering airport security enough to have saved at least one of the nearly 3,000 people who died on Sept. 11.
The defense contends the government knew more than Moussaoui about 9/11 beforehand and the FBI was so inept at fighting terrorism that nothing Moussaoui could have told them would have mattered. Moussaoui has admitted conspiring with al-Qaida to fly planes into U.S. buildings. But he says he was not part of 9/11 and was training as a pilot to fly a 747 into the White House as part of a possible later attack.
When prosecutor David Raskin began reading Moussaoui's confession statement and asking Rolince how the FBI could have responded to it in August 2001, Rolince started to describe what the FBI ''would have'' done. MacMahon protested.
MacMahon said this was the second time prosecutors had tried to read Moussaoui's confession to the jury and imply he had some obligation to admit these things to agent Samit. The defense argues the Fifth Amendment protected Moussaoui from being required to incriminate himself upon arrest.
After a private bench conference with attorneys and more testimony, Brinkema broke in and advised the jury: ''Juries cannot decide cases on speculation. ... Nobody knows what would have happened.''
No comments:
Post a Comment