Terrorist Implicates 3 Others in LAX Bomb Plot

Convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam testified Thursday that no one else knew all the details of his plan to bomb Los Angeles International Airport but that at least three other men who have never been charged conspired with him to perform an act of violence in the United States.

Ressam stopped short of saying the three men provided as much support as Mokhtar Haouari, a fellow Algerian whom he was testifying against in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

Haouari, 32, is accused of conspiring with Ressam in the LAX plot and giving him financial and logistical assistance. Ressam, 34, was convicted April 6 in Los Angeles and is cooperating with federal authorities in their ongoing terrorism investigation.

Ressam testified Thursday that one of the men who has not been charged, Hassan Zemmiri, provided him with $3,500 to finance “a job in America” and helped him plan a bank robbery to raise money for a bombing mission.

He testified that another man, who was not identified, had experience in bombing airports and offered Ressam detailed suggestions on how to detonate a suitcase bomb and then make his escape.

The third man, Ressam told jurors, was Samir Ait Mohamed, who gave him advice about explosives and how to conduct a terrorist attack. Ressam also said he and Mohamed discussed blowing up a neighborhood in Canada “where there was an Israeli interest” in the summer of 1999.

Ressam’s testimony came during a lengthy cross-examination by Haouari’s defense lawyer, Daniel Ollen. The defense lawyer said he left out the name of the one man in an agreement with federal prosecutors in the case.

Outside court, federal prosecutors and other U.S. and Canadian authorities attending the trial would not comment on whether they are seeking to question the three men.

Haouari is accused of providing Ressam with $3,000 in Canadian money and a fake Canadian driver’s license to help him cross the border into the United States and with sending a third man from New York to Seattle to help him. He faces as much as 85 years in prison if convicted on all seven felony counts.

Ressam said all three uncharged men became acquainted in Montreal in the months before he tried to drive a car full of explosives across the U.S.-Canadian border. The plot was thwarted Dec. 14, 1999, when a U.S. Customs agent became suspicious and detained Ressam. Haouari was arrested a month later in Montreal.

During his cross-examination, Ollen repeatedly asked Ressam why he didn’t turn to Zemmiri, Mohamed or the other friends for help in carrying out the plot, especially since most of them had experience in such matters. According to Ressam, some had trained in jihad camps in Afghanistan, as Ressam did, while others fought on the battlefields of Bosnia and Algeria.

“Instead of using these men to help you, you trusted Mokhtar Haouari to send a complete stranger to Los Angeles to help you blow up an airport. Is that your testimony?” Ollen asked.

“Yes,” Ressam replied. He offered no further explanation.

Ressam has conceded that he didn’t tell Haouari or admitted co-conspirator Abdelghani Meskini about his plans to attack LAX.

Ressam, who began testifying Tuesday, again testified that he explained to Haouari that he was going to Los Angeles to do “a job” and that Haouari understood what he meant. He said Haouari agreed to support his plans with money and other help.

Ressam also testified that, while in the camps in Afghanistan, he and other men participated in an experiment in which a dog was fatally poisoned with cyanide so they could become familiar enough with the deadly gas to use it in attacks against a government building full of people.

Earlier in the day, Ressam said that when he heard that the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa had killed 224 people, including 12 Americans, he thought it was “a good thing.”

But it could have been better, Ressam said he told Haouari after the August 1998 bombings. “It would have been preferable to carry it out in the country itself,” he recalled saying. “In America.”