Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 18, 1993 TAG: 9307180059
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
According to the complaint filed by prosecutors, the scheme was well advanced when Mubarak visited Washington earlier this year and planned to travel to New York.
Prosecutors charged that surveillance of Mubarak's Manhattan hotel was carried out, uniforms were purchased so members of the conspiracy could get close to their target by posing as hotel workers, and arrangements were under way to obtain weapons and explosives.
Prosecutors said the elaborate scheme was postponed when Mubarak suddenly canceled the New York leg of his trip but that the conspirators resurrected their plan for Mubarak's planned visit to New York this September.
FBI agents arrested Abdo Mohammed Haggag, a 34-year-old computer programmer who sometimes acted as an aide and translator for Abdel-Rahman.
After a hearing before a U.S. magistrate in federal court in Manhattan, the Jersey City, N.J., resident was ordered held without bail.
Court papers also charged that Haggag conspired with Siddig Ibrahim Siddig Ali and Clement Rodney Hampton-El, who have been charged, along with nine other defendants, with planning to bomb the U.N. building, two Hudson River tunnels and the federal building containing the offices of the FBI.
Several of those defendants were taken into custody last month in the New York borough of Queens, allegedly as explosives were being mixed in 55-gallon drums.
The complaint filed Saturday also disclosed that in addition to Emad Ali Salem, a former Egyptian army lieutenant colonel who is the U.S. government's informant in the multi-bomb plot case, prosecutors have obtained the cooperation of an unidentified confidential witness.
The existence of the confidential witness was confirmed by David Weiss, Haggag's court-appointed lawyer, who provided no other details.
However, Weiss, speaking to reporters on the courthouse steps after his client's hearing, said prosecutors would also charge that the plotters planned to try to kill Mubarak by exploding a car bomb at the U.N. building, apparently in case the hotel attack could not be carried out.
According to the complaint, Siddig Ali, while allegedly discussing the multi-bomb plot on May 18-19, told the confidential witness that 10 members of his group "had made elaborate arrangements to attempt to murder Mubarak during his visit to the United States in late March or early April 1993."
Prosecutors charged that the plotters had obtained not only hotel workers' uniforms, but confidential information about Mubarak's itinerary.
"Siddig Ali further explained that the plan had been postponed because of a `leak' which caused President Mubarak to alter his travel arrangements. Siddig Ali had learned about this `leak,' he said, because Haggag had been interviewed by American law enforcement agents," the papers continued. "Siddig Ali later suggested that the plan to murder President Mubarak would be carried out in September 1993."
by CNB