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Called
Off the Trail?
FBI Agents Probing Terror
Links
Say They Were Told, ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie’
FBI agents Robert Wright
and John Vincent told ABCNEWS the FBI stopped
them
from pursuing a
criminal investigation of terror suspects.
(ABCNEWS.com)
By Brian
Ross and Vic Walter
Dec. 19
— Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop
investigations
into a suspected terror cell linked to Osama
bin Laden's
al Qaeda network and the September 11 attacks.
In a dramatic interview with ABCNEWS, FBI special agents and
partners Robert
Wright and John Vincent
say they were called off
criminal investigations of suspected terrorists tied to the deadly
bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa.
U.S. officials say al Qaeda
was responsible for the embassy attacks and the September 11, 2001,
attacks
in the United States.
"September the 11th is a direct result of the incompetence of the FBI's
International
Terrorism Unit.
No doubt about that. Absolutely no doubt
about that," Wright said. "You can't know the things I know and not go
public."
In the mid-1990s, with growing terrorism in the Middle East,
the two
Chicago-based
agents were assigned to track a connection to Chicago,
a
suspected terrorist cell that would later lead them to a link with
Osama
bin Laden.
Wright says that when he pressed for authorization to
open a criminal investigation into the money trail,
his supervisor
stopped him.
"Do you know what his response was? 'I think it's just better to let
sleeping dogs lie,'" said Wright.
"Those dogs weren't sleeping. They
were training. They were getting ready."
The FBI says its handling of the matter was appropriate at the time.
"Truthfully, if 9/11 had not occurred, we wouldn't be here [giving the
interview]," said Vincent,
a 27-year veteran at the bureau until he
retired a few days after being interviewed by ABCNEWS.
"Because of
9/11, we're here because we see the danger."
‘You Will Not
Open Criminal Investigations’
The suspected terrorist cell in Chicago was the basis of the
investigation, yet Wright, who remains with the FBI,
says he soon
discovered that all the FBI intelligence division wanted him to do was
to follow suspected terrorists and file reports
— but make no
arrests.
"The supervisor who was there from headquarters was right straight
across from me and started yelling at me:
'You will not open criminal
investigations. I forbid any of you.
You will not open criminal
investigations against any of these intelligence subjects,'" Wright
said.
Even though they were on a terrorism task force and said they had proof
of criminal activity,
Wright said he was told not to pursue the matter.
In 1998 al
Qaeda terrorists bombed two American embassies in Africa.
The agents say some of the money for the attacks led back to the people
they had been tracking in Chicago
and to a powerful Saudi Arabian
businessman, Yassin
al-Kadi. Al-Kadi
is one of 12 Saudi businessmen
suspected of funneling millions of dollars to al
Qaeda and who had
extensive business and financial
ties in Chicago.
Yet, even after the bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no
arrests.
"Two months after the embassies are hit in Africa, they wanted to shut
down the criminal investigation," said Wright.
"They wanted to kill it."
The move outraged Chicago federal prosecutor Mark Flessner, who was
assigned to the case despite efforts
Wright and Vincent say were made
by superiors to block the probe.
Flessner said Wright and Vincent were
helping him build a strong criminal case against al-Kadi
and others.
"There were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department and
within the FBI
that simply were not going to let it [the building of a
criminal case] happen.
And it didn't happen, " Flessner said.
He said he still couldn't figure out why Washington stopped the case
— whether it was Saudi influence or bureaucratic ineptitude.
"I think there were very serious mistakes made," said Flessner.
"And I
think, it perhaps cost, it cost people their lives ultimately."
Muslim Agent Refused to
Record Fellow Muslim, Agent Says
Perhaps most astounding of the many mistakes, according to Flessner and
an affidavit filed by Wright,
is how an FBI agent named Gamal
Abdel-Hafiz seriously damaged the investigation. Wright says
Abdel-Hafiz, who is Muslim,
refused to secretly record one of al-Kadi's
suspected associates, who was also Muslim. Wright says Abdel-Hafiz told
him,
Vincent and other agents that "a Muslim doesn't record another
Muslim."
"He wouldn't have any problems interviewing or recording somebody who
wasn't a Muslim,
but he could never record another Muslim," said
Vincent.
Wright said he "was floored" by Abdel-Hafiz's refusal and immediately
called the FBI headquarters.
Their reaction surprised him even more:
"The supervisor from headquarters says, 'Well, you have to understand
where he's coming from, Bob.
' I said no, no, no, no, no. I understand
where I'm coming from," said Wright.
"We both took the same damn oath
to defend this country against all enemies foreign and domestic, and he
just said no?
No way in hell."
Far from being reprimanded, Abdel-Hafiz was promoted to one of the
FBI's most important anti-terrorism
posts,
the American Embassy in
Saudi Arabia, to handle investigations for the FBI in that Muslim
country.
The FBI said it was unaware of the allegations against the Muslim agent
when he was sent to Saudi Arabia
or of two similar incidents described
to ABCNEWS by agents in New York and Tampa, Fla.
They said Abdel-Hafiz
contributed significantly to many successful terror investigations.
In a statement to ABCNEWS, the FBI also defended the agent, saying he
had a right to refuse
because the undercover recording was supposed to
take place in a mosque.
But former prosecutor Flessner said that was a lie and the mosque was
never part of the plan.
"What he [Abdel-Hafiz] said was, it was against his religion to record
another Muslim.
I was dumbfounded by that response," said Flessner.
"And I had perfectly appropriate conversations with the supervisors of
his home office and nothing came of it."
Closing In on Bin Laden
Money Trail
On Sept. 11, 2001, the two agents watched the terror attacks in horror,
worried that men they could have stopped years earlier may have been
involved.
The White House confirmed their fears. One month after the attacks, the
U.S. government officially identified al-Kadi
— the same man
the FBI had ordered Wright and Vincent to leave alone years earlier
— as one of bin Laden's important financiers.
Al-Kadi told ABCNEWS he can prove his total innocence, repeatedly
denying, from his office in Riyadh,
any connection to bin Laden or al
Qaeda.
"Not even one cent went to Osama bin Laden," he said.
But on Dec. 6, U.S. Customs agents, as part of their own investigation,
conducted a midnight search
of a Boston-area company believed to be
secretly owned and controlled by al-Kadi.
The company provides computer
software to the FBI and other key federal
agencies,
which means al-Kadi and his employees could have had access
to some of the government's most sensitive secrets.
Al-Kadi is on the U.S. government's "dirty dozen" list of leading
terror financiers being investigated by the CIA.
The federal government
says it is pursuing possible criminal charges.
"I was relieved that Customs was picking it up … where we
failed big time," said Wright. "There's so much more.
God, there's so
much more. A lot more."
See...
Yassin
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Ptech -
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Battelle
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Tetrahedron.Org
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Watson,
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