Witnesses in Terror Trial Trace Paper Trail

Prosecutors on Thursday used a parade of witnesses to link alleged terrorist Ahmed Ressam to bomb timer components bought at Canadian electronics stores, and to a motel room where they say high-grade explosives were made.

No bombs were ever detonated in the alleged millennium terrorist conspiracy. But authorities say they thwarted a bomb plot when Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, 1999, at the U.S.-Canadian border with a car trunk full of explosives and four timing devices that could have set them off.

During a day of often tedious testimony, several federal prosecutors meticulously sought to link Ressam to those explosives by showing that he bought parts for the timing devices--and then holed up in the hotel to help assemble the compounds.

Electronics store manager Patricia May testified that someone using a credit card in the name of Benni Norris--a Ressam alias-- bought $247.34 worth of electronic components Aug. 31, 1999. Those included circuit boards, voltage capacitors and regulators, special glues and soldering equipment.

May identified the components on close-up photos of the timers that were seized from Ressam’s rental car. “Almost everything is from my store,” May said.

May actually testified last year. As with some other witnesses, her deposition--and defense lawyers’ cross-examination of her--occurred in Canada and shown via videotape.

Neither May nor another electronics store manager was asked to identify Ressam in court because neither handled the specific transactions. And although defense lawyers suggested that anyone could have used the credit card to make the purchases, prosecutors have indicated they will bring in handwriting experts to testify that Ressam signed the invoices.

A front desk clerk and a maid from the 2400 Motel in Vancouver also testified that Ressam and Abdelmajid Dahoumane spent three weeks in a motel room that was later found to contain traces of explosives.

Dahoumane has been indicted as Ressam’s co-conspirator in making and transporting the explosives and in engaging in an international terrorist plot. He remains at large.

Maid Annelie Calija said in a videotaped deposition that Ressam and Dahoumane wouldn’t let her clean the room, that they kept all the windows open despite the winter cold and that “there was some funny smell, a different smell” coming from the room.

Explosives Could ‘Take Down Building’

Authorities have said a stench occurs when assembling the kinds of explosives found in Ressam’s car. In court papers, they have said the explosives in the car could “easily take down a building.”

Defense lawyers asked Calija and other witnesses if the two men were the only guests to ask for privacy. She said no.

Prosecutors on Thursday also began laying the groundwork for tying Ressam to a global network of Algerian terrorists.

Several of Ressam’s acquaintances testified that he traveled in the same circles as well-known figures in an Algerian community of refugees accused of belonging to terrorist organizations.

Those men included Fateh Kamel, Mustafa Labsi and a man named Karim.

The jury wasn’t given an explanation of who the three are. But authorities have said outside of court that Kamel is a logistics expert for terrorist cells who was trained in Islamic militant Osama bin Laden’s camps in Afghanistan, along with Ressam.

Kamel and Ressam--in absentia--are on trial in France as cohorts in the Roubaix gang of terrorists accused of a series of bombings and attacks in the mid-1990s near Paris.

Authorities have said Labsi is a suspected terrorist with ties to the bin Laden camps, and that the Karim in question is Karim Said Atmani, a document forger for the same Algerian-based terrorist cells.