Community | January 24, 2009 | 8 comments

AP IMPACT: Freedom looms for terrorist

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090124/ap_on_re_us/mystery_terrorist

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gaiusfurius
NEW YORK – In 1973, a young terrorist named Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary entered the United States and quickly began plotting an audacious attack in New York City.

He built three powerful bombs — bombs powerful enough to kill, maim and destroy — and put them in rental cars scattered around town, near Israeli targets.

The plot failed. The explosive devices did not detonate, and Al-Jawary fled the country, escaping prosecution for nearly two decades — until he was convicted of terrorism charges in Brooklyn and sentenced to 30 years in federal penitentiary.

But his time is up.

In less than a month, the 63-year-old Al-Jawary is expected to be released. He will likely be deported; where to is anybody's guess. The shadowy figure had so many aliases it's almost impossible to know which country is his true homeland.

Al-Jawary has never admitted his dark past or offered up tidbits in exchange for his release. Much of Al-Jawary's life remains a mystery — even to the dogged FBI case agent who tracked him down.

But an Associated Press investigation — based on recently declassified documents, extensive court records, CIA investigative notes and interviews with former intelligence officials — reveals publicly for the first time Al-Jawary's deep involvement in terrorism beyond the plot that led to his conviction.

Government documents link Al-Jawary to Black September's murderous letter-bombing campaign targeting world leaders in the 1970s and a botched terrorist attack in 1979. Former intelligence officials suspect he had a role in the bombing of a TWA flight in 1974 that killed 88 people.

"He's a very dangerous man," said Mike Finnegan, the former FBI counterterrorism agent who captured Al-Jawary. "A very bad guy."
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8 comments // AP IMPACT: Freedom looms for terrorist

  • TonyDukes
    • 0
      TonyDukes  

    • With this kinda insane of crap, fostered by cowards and those who haven't yet paid for thier freedom, and closing of GITMO, will make those that serve options less, kill them all and save tax payers money so our socialist govt can give it away to failing banks and illegal alliens. I like the smell of gunpowder in a just revolution.

    • 3 years ago
  • ejasun
  • gaiusfurius
    • 0
      gaiusfurius  
    • ejasun:

      Oooooo a lady of few words. Powerful words. You do have to give him that. But Freedom? Hell our own citizens don't enjoy the benefits of the constitution anymore, why give him the luxury? They just need to put him in general circulation his last two weeks, put out the word, and let some inmate earn some redemption.

    • 3 years ago
  • sirach481
  • gaiusfurius
  • pjacobs51
  • gaiusfurius
    • 0
      gaiusfurius  

    • One thing that I have noticed about Current is that a majority of posters seem to hate what America stands for, hate Israeli's, and they support the rights of terrorists more than the rights of their own countrymen. So...consider this article a News Years present. In my opinion this man should be put to the sword. The welfare of the many out weigh the discomfort of the few.

    • 3 years ago
  • gaiusfurius
    • 0
      gaiusfurius  

    • The events linked to Al-Jawary happened long ago, when the conflagration in the Middle East spread around the world; he is being released into another century, one in which the scale of terrorism has grown exponentially, even bringing down two of New York's skyscrapers.

      Al-Jawary has long insisted that he was framed and that the government has the wrong guy. Al-Jawary declined an interview through prison officials and has since failed to answer letters mailed to him in the last year and a half, but his former lawyer, Ron Kuby, insists he "wasn't a threat in 1991 and he's not a threat now."

      Federal prosecutors didn't see it that way. They point to his trip to the United States in the 1970s as proof.

      A slender, nattily dressed man with a thin mustache, Al-Jawary walked into the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in November 1972 and applied for a visa using a phony Iraqi passport. He answered some routine questions, had his picture taken and was granted a visa.

      On Jan. 12, 1973, Al-Jawary flew to Boston via Montreal and then to New York City.

      Five days later, after the bureau's office in Tel Aviv received a tip in connection to another investigation, agents tried to locate a man who later turned out to be Al-Jawary.

      They found him in New York City and conducted a perfunctory interview. Where do you live? Baghdad. Why did you come here? Flight training at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

      The agent asked if Al-Jawary was affiliated with any political groups. He said he was "nonpolitical."

      The agent asked how long he was staying. Al-Jawary said he planned to return to the Middle East after his training ended in about a month and get a job as a commercial pilot, according to FBI documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

      Al-Jawary befriended a woman named Carol and her young son Todd. Carol and Al-Jawary grew close, with Al-Jawary taking her son on trips to Manhattan. Unbeknownst to the woman, the boy was a decoy. Al-Jawary had no interest in a relationship with her or Todd. He was scouting targets for a terrorist attack, and the presence of the boy would help him avoid suspicion.

      He picked two Israeli banks on Fifth Avenue and the El-Al cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport.

    • 3 years ago
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