4 Found Guilty in Plot to Bomb N.Y. Trade Center : Terrorism: Muslim extremists are convicted a year after the blast that killed six and injured 1,000. Verdict is met with angry outbursts in Manhattan courtroom.

A federal jury on Friday found four militant Muslims guilty of conspiring to bomb the World Trade Center in what prosecutors called the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.

The jury convicted the defendants on conspiracy, assault and various explosives charges after a five-month trial during which 207 witnesses testified and 1,003 exhibits were presented--re-creating the horror of the explosion on Feb. 26, 1993.

The blast that filled the 110-story twin towers with smoke and flames on that snowy Friday afternoon killed six people and injured more than 1,000 others. It also shattered America’s sense of post-Cold War invulnerability, the belief that terrorism was an overseas phenomenon.

All four defendants could receive life in prison without parole when they are sentenced on May 4.

Turmoil erupted in the third-floor courtroom when the verdicts were announced.

“Injustice! Victim!” shouted Mohammed A. Salameh, the chief defendant in the case, which was based overwhelmingly on circumstantial evidence. “God is great!” his three companions called out in defiance, pounding on the defense table.

The brother of one of the men was held in contempt for joining in the outburst. U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy later said that he believed the disturbance was a deliberate attempt to influence the jury.

“This verdict should send a clear and unmistakable message that we will not tolerate terrorism in this country,” U.S. Atty. Mary Jo White said.

Following the verdicts, which were reached during the fifth day of deliberations, President Clinton said in Washington: “I am very gratified by the work that was done. The signal should go out across the world that anyone who seeks to come to this country to practice terrorism will have the full weight of law enforcement authorities against them.”

And the State Department warned Americans of possible attacks by Islamic extremists, particularly in Egypt, in retaliation for the verdicts.

All of the trade center defendants are followers of Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, a Muslim cleric and opponent of Egypt’s government. He is imprisoned in a nearby federal jail, awaiting trial later this year on charges that he was involved in a plot to bomb the United Nations and three other prominent New York City targets.

The anonymous jury Friday found Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima and Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj guilty of conspiring to detonate a bomb in the garage beneath the trade center, causing widespread injuries, loss of life and millions of dollars in damage.

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, a mysterious Iraqi who fled the New York area hours after the explosion, was indicted as a fugitive and is still at large. Investigators believe he is the ringleader of the alleged plot and is the subject of an international manhunt.

White said that “considerable efforts” are being made to apprehend him.

Lawyers for some of the defendants said that they would appeal.

Robert E. Precht, Salameh’s attorney, charged that pretrial leaks by the government had sought to “demonize” his client. “No one in government should be patting themselves on the back and pretending this was a fair outcome.” Like other defense lawyers in the case, Precht spoke from behind wooden police barriers outside the federal courthouse in Manhattan’s Foley Square, where security was extraordinarily tight. When the verdicts were announced, the entire front of the courthouse was sealed off and large contingents of federal guards and New York police officers stood at the ready. But there were no incidents.

During the trial, prosecutors charged that Salameh, 26, a Palestinian immigrant, had helped provide the money for the chemicals used to manufacture the bomb, helped build the explosive device, rented the shed in New Jersey where bomb components were stored and rented an apartment that also became a bomb factory.

Prosecutors further charged that Salameh rented the yellow van that carried the bomb to the trade center’s garage and that he was seen in the van only hours before the explosive was detonated.

Government lawyers showed that Ayyad, a 26-year-old chemical engineer, ordered bomb components, including hydrogen gas tanks used in the explosive. Telephone records introduced during the trial showed scores of phone calls from Ayyad to the bomb factory and storage shed. Ayyad also provided the car that Salameh used to stake out the World Trade Center, prosecutors told the jury.

Evidence showed that Abouhalima, 34, bought smokeless powder for the bomb and was seen frequently at the bomb factory while the device was being assembled. Evidence also was introduced that Abouhalima was seen only hours before the bombing by a gas station attendant in a car accompanying the van that carried the explosive.

Prosecutors charged that Ajaj, 28, was trained in explosives before he tried to enter the United States with a fake passport. Bombmaking manuals were found in his luggage, and he called the bomb factory from jail several times while the device was being assembled.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Gilmore Childers and Henry DePippo spent 18 weeks outlining their case to the jury in such painstaking fashion that even Duffy, outside the presence of the jury, urged them repeatedly to step up the pace.

The prosecutors, for example, spent weeks introducing pieces of debris found in the five-story-deep underground crater left by the 1,200-pound bomb. One was a charred hunk of chassis bearing an identification number showing the vehicle that carried the bomb was a Ryder van that had been rented by Salameh.

Another jagged metal piece bore the initials “AGL.” The government put on witnesses to identify it as part of a tank of hydrogen gas that AGL Welding Inc. delivered to a New Jersey storage locker rented by some of the defendants. Hydrogen gas can greatly increase the destructive force of a homemade bomb, experts testified.

Aside from physical evidence found at the bomb site, the government’s case focused largely on the storage locker where Salameh and Abouhalima were seen as frequent visitors. Prosecutors showed that a variety of chemicals were stored at the Jersey City locker even before the hydrogen tanks were delivered there.

The government said that the bomb was made in a nearby apartment shared by Salameh and Yousef, who is believed to be overseas.

Experts said that the walls and carpeting of the apartment were stained with chemical residues. Prosecutors also introduced a pair of acid-stained shoes belonging to Abouhalima, who flew to Egypt shortly after the bombing but was seized by security police there and turned over to the FBI.

In searching Abouhalima’s New Jersey home, the FBI also found a receipt for a refrigerator that was used to store nitroglycerin for the bombing.

Other evidence showed that Salameh and Ayyad opened a joint bank account with $8,500 and later withdrew a large cash sum, using 36 $100 bills to purchase a supply of chemicals.

Ayyad also was linked to an anonymous letter sent to the New York Times threatening further acts of violence unless the United States cut off all assistance to Israel. Computer disks found in his office bore the same phrases, and saliva tests on the envelope flap matched samples from Ayyad.

Records subpoenaed from telephone companies showed Salameh, Abouhalima and Ayyad were constantly in touch through more than 100 calls in the weeks preceding the bombing.

Ajaj had been in jail for six months on immigration violations at the time of the explosion. But the government said that he was linked to the bomb plot through bomb-making manuals and terrorist training videos that he had brought into the country.

Trial evidence showed that Ajaj and Yousef had arrived on the same flight from Pakistan on Sept. 1, 1992. Prosecutors said Ajaj was stopped because of a false Swedish passport, but Yousef slipped into the country on his Iraqi passport. Yousef’s fingerprints later were found on some of Ajaj’s bomb manuals.

Although the prosecution called more than 200 witnesses, none of the defendants took the witness stand on their own behalf, and only one--Ajaj--put on any witnesses. Instead, defense lawyers stressed to the jury that there were no eyewitnesses who saw anyone make a bomb or drive explosives into the trade center’s garage, asserting there were “reasonable doubts” about the culpability of their clients.

In fact, they noted that one prosecution witness--gas station attendant Willie Hernandez Moosh--had mistakenly identified two members of the jury rather than two of the defendants as the men he saw driving a yellow Ryder van in New Jersey the morning of the explosion.

Precht, Salameh’s lawyer, described his client as “a struggling immigrant” who was unwittingly involved in the plot only because he was duped by the fugitive Yousef, whom Precht said was a professional terrorist with apparent financial backing from Iraq.

“Salameh did not know his activities were intended to further a conspiracy to destroy buildings in the United States,” Precht said.

He acknowledged that Salameh had rented the van that was used in the bombing but that he intended to use it to move some of his belongings.

During the trial, prosecutors did not attempt to pinpoint the source of the funds that they said were used by Salameh and Ayyad to purchase chemicals. Authorities learned that the money had been wired from a bank in Germany but could not trace it further.

Atiq Ahmed, the lawyer representing Ayyad, said that his client only bought chemicals in the mistaken belief that he was helping friends start a chemical export business.

Ajaj’s defense attorney, Austin Campriello, called a witness to testify that the literature on bombs that was in his client’s possession was legal and could be obtained in public libraries. Campriello said that the terrorist-training videos Ajaj had were related to his support for Muslin rebels in Afghanistan.

Still awaiting trial next fall are a group of 15 alleged conspirators, headed by Abdul Rahman, who are charged with helping to plan not only the trade center explosion but also the destruction of United Nations headquarters and the Lincoln and Holland commuter tunnels linking New York with New Jersey. All have pleaded not guilty.

The effect of the guilty verdicts Friday on that case was uncertain. Prosecutors were asked whether the jury’s decision might persuade some of the defendants in the larger trial to seek plea bargains.

“Can happen,” White replied, smiling. But the prosecutor stressed that the larger trial was a separate issue.

“I am glad the criminal justice system has acted decisively,” said Stanley Brezenoff, executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that operates the trade center.

The Bombers and Their Roles

Sentencing for the four defendants is set for May 4. Though the main charge of conspiracy carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, other related charges could send the men to prison for life with parole.

THE DEFENDANTS

Mohammad A. Salameh, 26

Role: Rented van that carried the bomb; helped finance bombing.

Ahmad Mohammad Ajaj, 28

Role: Authorities found bomb-making books in his luggage with the bomb’s recipe in one of them.

Mahmud Abouhalima, 34

Role: Paid for gas for Salameh’s rented van just before bombing.

Nidal Ayyad, 26

Role: Helped finance bombing, ordered chemicals and hydrogen gas and rented cars.

Source: Staff and wire reports. Roles based on trial testimony