Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, October 10, 1993 TAG: 9310100087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KEVIN McCOY NEWSDAY
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
She was soft-spoken and reserved, honey blond hair and farm-country upbringing. He was big muscles and look-at-me, rugged dark looks and Egyptian army vet.
The elusive chemistry of love led them down the aisle for two weddings, one Christian, one Muslim.
Nearly six years, a bitter divorce and an improbable reconciliation later, the relationship of Barbara Rogers and Emad Salem has become a compelling subplot to the most stunning case of terrorism in U.S. history.
Salem, the FBI informant who infiltrated the group of fellow Arabs charged in the World Trade Center bombing and a second conspiracy, now spends his days in hiding as a federally protected witness, wondering why he's not hailed as a national hero.
Rogers, meanwhile, finds herself jobless and battling eviction efforts by her former Manhattan hospital employers who feared her relationship with one of the FBI's most significant informants made her a potential security risk.
"My life has been turned totally upside down because I was Mrs. Emad Salem," Rogers said. "The thing is, he loves me.
"And, unfortunately, I love him."
The story of their relationship, drawn from interviews, public and court records and legal and investigative sources, seems like a real-life spy novel starring the double agent who couldn't escape his roots, the woman he wouldn't give up and the cross-currents of international intrigue that eventually pulled them apart.
The portrait is necessarily incomplete because Salem is no longer speaking publicly and federal authorities declined to comment. Rogers, still protective of Salem, grudgingly discussed limited details of her story only to publicize a legal fight over her firing.
Rogers, 40, moved to New York City 16 years ago from upstate New York and eventually landed a secretarial job at Mount Sinai Medical Center.
Her diligence at the renowned Manhattan health institution earned her glowing performance reviews, promotion to a support administrator post and a hospital-owned apartment.
To balance her work life, Rogers said, she joined tae kwon do classes to give her physical release and increased self-confidence. There, she met the man who would transform her life.
To hear him tell it, Emad Ali Salem, 43, had never had such a romance before he immigrated to New York in 1987. In interviews with him before his informant's cover was blown in June, he said women in Egypt were less assertive, less independent, less equal. Salem said he soon fell in love with the woman he joined for karate workouts and target-shooting, passions that were part of his life from years of Egyptian army duty.
"I liked her strong and aggressive character," Salem said.
Within months, they were married.
"We didn't have much money, but we were happy," Rogers said. She spent hours helping her husband, who worked as a department store security guard, improve his Egyptian-accented English and adjust to American ways. But, Rogers says, she couldn't help him escape his past.
In interviews before he disappeared into the witness-protection program, Salem discussed only snippets of his earlier life. An 18-year army vet. Lieutenant colonel wounded during the 1981 assassination of President Anwar Sadat - a claim now denied by Egyptian officials. An ex-wife and a sister back home.
But Salem was vague when asked about his current job. He said he helped a girlfriend promote her jewelry-design business and spent hours with Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman and the believers who followed the fiery Islamic cleric.
In reality, he was a spy.
Rogers said Salem approached the FBI during the investigation of the 1990 slaying in New York of militant Rabbi Meir Kahane. Federal authorities were trying to determine if the alleged killer, Egyptian Muslim El-Sayyid Nosair, was part of a broader conspiracy.
Salem's motive for approaching the FBI remains unclear. What is known for certain is that Salem cultivated relationships with Muslim supporters who gathered at the Manhattan courthouse where Nosair was tried in Kahane's murder. The group included Mahmud Abouhalima, Mohammad Salameh, Ibrahim El-Gabrowny and others who would become defendants in the World Trade Center case or the alleged second bombing conspiracy.
"He was telling the FBI what was happening. He knew what this group was up to," Rogers said.
The pressure of his dangerous secret role made Salem a different person, Rogers said. When they married, he was religious and unfailingly polite. Now, she said, he was moody and violent, even sometimes toward her.
The couple separated in 1991. In February, their divorce became final. But Rogers said that she and Salem, who by then was living with German-American jewelry designer Karin Goodlive Ohltersdorf - the woman who would join him in the witness-relocation program - began dating soon after the divorce.
Officials of the FBI decline to comment on Salem. But several law enforcement sources and Rogers said the FBI last year decided it no longer needed his services to provide information on any violence that might be plotted in the local Arab community.
That changed Feb. 26, the day a rental van loaded with explosive chemicals detonated in a garage beneath the World Trade Center, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.
"He knew he could have stopped it from happening," Rogers said.
Federal investigators quickly reached the same conclusion. It is unclear precisely how long after the bombing that FBI agents re-established contact with Salem. But Rogers said "desperate" FBI agents met Salem "within days" of the blast.
Salem extracted a price for the rapprochement. While Rogers will only say "it cost them plenty," law enforcement sources confirmed he was promised as much as $500,000.
He soon proved his worth, recording scores of hours of secret audio and videotapes that form the basis of a sweeping conspiracy case against Abdel-Rahman and 14 co-defendants. The suspects are charged in an alleged plot to bomb the United Nations and other New York landmarks.
But Salem cautiously hatched a secret plan of his own in case the FBI failed to pay him. While investigating the alleged conspirators, he secretly taped federal investigators as they discussed plans for snaring the conspiracy suspects.
Investigators discovered the bootleg tapes inadvertently, Rogers said.
Salem suffered an asthma attack on the day the conspiracy suspects were arrested in June, and he landed in the Mount Sinai emergency room, where he called for and met with Rogers.
According to Rogers, Mount Sinai officials decided her renewed relationship with Salem made her a potential target and a security threat to hospital personnel and patients. They fired her in July.
Today, Rogers awaits what she describes as a "fair" financial settlement that will enable her to move out of the city and start a new career.
And what of Salem? Rogers said he chafes at the security restrictions imposed as he moves from one secret government safe house to another and bristles at news stories that disclose details of his multiple marriages and bare criticism from fellow Arabs.
by CNB