Sources Say Saudi Linked to ’96 Blast to Spurn Plea Deal

Hani Abdel Rahim Hussein Sayegh, the Saudi dissident linked to the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing that killed 19 Americans, will reject the plea agreement that was the basis of his deportation from Canada to the United States, according to sources close to the case.

As a result of what his attorneys regard as substantial legal glitches, Sayegh will not enter a plea at a hearing here today as expected, the sources said. Instead, he is expected to ask by the end of the month for a new deal or even a trial.

The same problems that have complicated the plea-bargain agreement could soon turn the case against Sayegh into a legal minefield for U.S. officials investigating the June 1996 attack on the apartment compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that housed U.S. troops serving in the Persian Gulf.

U.S. officials have been counting on Sayegh, who they believe is an Iranian-trained operative, to provide them with information that would open promising new avenues of investigation after 13 frustrating months of dealing with often uncooperative Saudi authorities.

Defendants have the right to renege on a plea-bargain deal at any point before a plea is entered in court, and federal judges customarily question defendants to make certain they have had the advice of counsel before entering pleas.

Sayegh claims that the plea bargain was brokered with only the help of a detention center interpreter and without legal counsel.

Justice Department and FBI officials declined to confirm or deny that Sayegh agreed to the deal without counsel. Nevertheless, a government source familiar with the investigation insisted that Sayegh was represented by an attorney when he discussed the deal.

Although suspects can waive counsel, Sayegh faced particularly unusual circumstances, the sources said: He did not understand the U.S. legal system or his options, including the concept of trial by jury. He does not speak English.

Sayegh claims he was not given a copy of the plea bargain, in which he agreed to tell what he knows in exchange for a 10-year sentence for conspiracy in an earlier, unsuccessful plot against unspecified American targets, until several days after he arrived in Washington. Before signing the document in Canada, he says, he was allowed only to read it.

One of the main points Sayegh reportedly wants addressed is what would happen to him at the end of the 10-year prison term, an issue not addressed in the agreement. Unless otherwise stipulated, he would most likely be deported to Saudi Arabia, where he could face execution.

Sayegh had so little understanding of what was involved in the plea-bargain agreement that he became distraught and collapsed when his situation was fully explained to him, according to the sources.

Although Saudi and U.S. officials contend that Sayegh was a driver and lookout during the Khobar bombing, the evidence linking him to the attack is turning out to be shallow, the sources said. He has consistently denied--to U.S. investigators, to his lawyers and in an interview with The Times shortly after his arrest--that he knows details of the attack.

And the vast majority of the evidence about his general involvement in anti-Saudi activities is based on information he provided to an FBI agent and assistant U.S. attorney who interviewed him in Canada without counsel present, sources close to the case said.

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Sayegh, a member of the Saudi Shiite minority, has acknowledged playing a role in looking for guns on the local black market to be used against Americans. He has admitted his fury at the Saudi kingdom, ruled by a Sunni Muslim family, for its persecution of the Shiites. And he is opposed to the U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia.

One major question that may have been partly answered involves Iran’s interest in anti-American activities inside the kingdom. Sayegh told U.S. investigators that he looked for guns on orders that originated in Tehran. He has also openly admitted to training in the Iranian holy city of Qom and to dealings with the Iranian Embassy in Syria, where he lived in 1996.

But he increasingly appears to be a minor player operating on the edges of a clandestine Saudi opposition movement, a fact U.S. investigators now seem to recognize, the sources said.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this report.