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Senator KYL. Let's begin with Mr. Childers and Mr. DePippo. Welcome.

PANEL CONSISTING OF J. GILMORE CHILDERS, ORRICK, HERRINGTON & SUTCLIFFE, LLP, NEW YORK CITY, NY, AND HENRY J. De PIPPO, NIXON, HARGRAVE, DEVANS & DOYLE, ROCHESTER, NY; AND PATRICK J. COLGAN, JR., PBL ASSOCIATES, WYCKOFF, NJ

STATEMENT OF J. GILMORE CHILDERS

Mr. Childers. Thank you, Senator.

As you know, Mr. DePippo and I are here to discuss the trial of the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center. The trial of four of the conspirators began approximately 6 months after the bombing itself. After the conclusion of the 6-month jury trial, each of those defendants was found guilty on all counts on which he was charged. Last fall, Ramzi Yousef, who was a fugitive during the first trial, was also tried and convicted for the World Trade Center bombing. Each defendant, including Mr. Yousef, has now been sentenced to a total of 240 years' imprisonment for their participation in the World Trade Center bombing.

The defendants' respective roles in the terrorist plot-and their participation in the World Trade Center bombing-were reconstructed during the course of the trial using over 1,000 exhibits and the testimony of more than 200 witnesses. In the end, the evidence overwhelmingly established that Ramzi Yousef, Mohammed Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj, and Abdul Rahman Yasin conspired to bomb targets in the United States and that, as part of their terrorist scheme, they participated in the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center.

Ahmad Ajaj first entered the United States on September 9, 1991. He settled in Houston, TX, and filed a petition for political asylum, claiming that the Israeli government had imprisoned and tortured him in retaliation for his peaceful opposition to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

Ajaj never appeared for an INS hearing on his asylum claim, however. Instead, Ajaj relinquished his Houston apartment and, in April 1992, hastily left the country under an assumed name to attend a terrorist training camp on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

After arriving in Pakistan, Ajaj traveled to Dubai and then to Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, Ajaj obtained a letter of introduction to "Camp Khaldan," a terrorist training camp located in Afghanistan just across the border from Peshawar, Pakistan. The letter of introduction stated that the bearer, Ajaj, had come to the "land of jihad" for training and asked the leader of the camp to provide Ajaj with training in weapons and explosives.

Also while in Pakistan, Ajaj made contact with Ramzi Yousef. Together, Ajaj and Yousef plotted to apply their collective explosives training and experience to bomb targets in the United States. With this objective, Ajaj and Yousef studied the voluminous materials they amassed, including a series of printed bomb-making manuals with blue covers. These blue books, as they came to be known during the trial, like Ajaj's handwritten notes, contained

formulae for various explosives, including the ones that were later used by the conspirators to make the World Trade Center bomb. Specifically, in assimilating their knowledge of explosives for use in the United States, Yousef and Ajaj appear to have focused on those portions of Ajaj's terrorist materials that explain how to make a bomb using the explosive compound urea nitrate as the primary explosive the same compound that they, in fact, later used as the main charge for the World Trade Center bombing.

Formula and instructions for making a number of other explosive also later used as boosters and detonators in the World Trade Center bomb-such as nitroglycerin and ammonium nitrate dynamite and lead azide-were also contained in Ajaj's blue books.

The materials Ajaj gathered during his terrorist course of study also included instructions on making and using false identification. Following those instructions, Ajaj and Yousef, while overseas in 1992, collected materials such as photographs, identification cards, bank records, education records, and medical records to create the false identities they would later use to travel to the United States to carry out their terrorist plot. Additionally, these materials recommended that a ground-floor location be selected as the base of operation for an urban terrorist organization in order to facilitate escape if it were to become necessary.

Ajaj's terrorist studies abroad also encompassed instructional videotapes. The videos not only demonstrated how to make explosives, but also advocated a specific bombing target: the United States. For example, the opening scene in one of the videos, obviously intended to be inspirational, shows a van crashing into the front of a United States embassy. Once inside the embassy, the suicidal driver of the van detonates a bomb, which destroys the embassy. Following that introduction, the video demonstrates how to make a number of explosives.

In a few minutes, Senators, we will play portions of two of these videotapes that were captured from Mr. Ajaj.

Having assimilated his explosive training and gathered his kit of terrorist materials, Ajaj, in the company of Yousef, made plans illegally to enter the United States and to bring with them this terrorist kit.

On August 31, 1992, Ajaj and Yousef boarded a flight from Peshawar to Karachi in Pakistan. On that flight, which constituted the first leg of their journey to New York, Ajaj and Yousef occupied adjacent seats in the first class section of the airplane. When they changed planes in Karachi for the second leg of their trip to New York, however, Ajaj and Yousef split up in order to disguise the fact that they were, in fact, traveling together. They checked in separately and sat apart from each other in the first class section of the flight.

Yousef, who was dressed in a loud, multicolored, three-piece silk outfit, left Pakistan using a British passport under an assumed name. Ajaj, who was dressed in a Western-style conservative suit and tie, carried a valid Swedish passport. I say "valid" guardedly because that passport had been altered by affixing Ajaj's picture on top of the original photograph of the bearer of that passport.

Evidently expecting to pass unchallenged through the INS inspection area at New York's Kennedy Airport-since an individual

bearing a valid Swedish passport does not even need a visa to enter the United States-it was Ajaj who carried the kit of terrorist materials.

Specifically, Ajaj carried, among other things: two notebooks with handwritten notes on explosives; the six printed bomb-making manuals that we referred to as the blue books; four instructional videotapes on making explosives; anti-American and anti-Israeli materials; and documents relating to false identities.

Once Ajaj and Yousef arrived at the INS inspection area at Kennedy Airport on September 1, 1992, however, things did not go quite as they had planned. The first INS inspector that Ajaj encountered determined that Ajaj's Swedish passport was suspicious and directed him to the secondary inspection area. The inspector examined the passport and, upon discovering that it had been altered, opened Ajaj's luggage and found the terrorist kit. Ajaj was detained as a danger to the United States and was later charged with passport fraud. Ultimately, Ajaj would enter a plea of guilty to that charge and was sentenced-and, in fact, served-6 months' imprisonment.

Meanwhile, at Kennedy Airport on September 1, 1992, Yousef— who did not have a visa-was sent directly to the secondary inspection area. Yousef had abandoned his British identity upon reaching the United States-I should say his assumed British identity opting instead to use an Iraqi passport and claim political asylum. When Yousef was interviewed at the secondary inspection area, he was arrested for entering the country without a visa.

Yousef asserted, in a sworn statement to INS officials, that he had succeeded in boarding the flight to New York by bribing an official in Pakistan. Additionally, rather than divulge the fact that he was traveling with Ajaj, who was carrying the terrorist kit they had compiled, Yousef claimed to be traveling alone. Ajaj also claimed to be traveling alone. Ajaj's lie, together with the fact that the terrorist materials were carried by Ajaj rather than by Yousef, resulted in Yousef being released on his own recognizance. Thus, although Ajaj was detained and the terrorist material seized, Yousef succeeded in entering the country to later carry out the bombing plot.

Upon entering the United States, Yousef quickly began to work with other trusted coconspirators on the bomb plot. Within days of his arrival, Yousef had made contact with some of his codefendants, including Mohammed Salameh and Abdul Rahman Yasin, both of whom lived in Jersey City, NJ. Yousef began living with Salameh shortly thereafter and became known to his coconspirators by the alias Rashed.

Ajaj was incarcerated from that point in time he was detained in the airport on September 2. Nevertheless, Ajaj remained in contact with Yousef and other coconspirators and continued to be involved in the bomb plot during this period. During his time in Federal custody, Ajaj never contacted Yousef directly. Rather, Ajaj used a friend in Dallas as an intermediary. Specifically, Ajaj would call Dallas from prison, and his friend would then either relay messages to Yousef or on numerous occasions actually patch three-way calls through to Yousef, thereby rendering law enforcement efforts to detect contact between Ajaj and Yousef far more difficult.

During one of those calls, and speaking, as they always did, in guarded and sometimes coded language, Ajaj told his friend to stay in touch with Yousef and also stated that Yousef may need to obtain the terrorist kit that was seized from Ajaj at the airport.

Meanwhile, the other coconspirators proceeded with the plot. In mid-October 1992, Salameh opened a joint bank account with another codefendant, Nidal Ayyad, who worked as a chemical engineer for Allied Signal Corp. Together, they deposited approximately $8,500 into this joint account which would later be used to fund the bombing plot. Approximately 1 week later, Salameh and Ayyad withdrew the money from their joint account and transferred the cash to an individual bank account opened by Salameh that very same day.

By mid-November, Salameh and Yousef began to call a series of chemical companies to obtain what Ajaj's blue books described as the raw materials for urea nitrate, those materials being commercially manufactured urea, which is often used as a fertilizer-and, oddly enough, at the World Trade Center as an ice melter-and nitric acid. After they succeeded in obtaining urea and nitric acid for the main charge of the World Trade Center bomb, the conspirators began to build boosters and detonators for that bomb, again following the formulae described in Ajaj's blue books and handwritten materials.

Yousef went to the City Chemical Corp. in Jersey City, NJ, where he purchased 1,000 pounds of technical grade urea and 105 gallons of nitric acid to make urea nitrate for the bomb's main charge. Yousef also purchased 60 gallons of sulfuric acid to make nitroglycerin to act as a booster. He also purchased an amount of ethyl alcohol which is used to stabilize nitroglycerin so that it could later be transported safely. He also purchased a 25-pound bag of sodium carbonate to neutralize acids that were used during the mixing processes.

In mid-December, Mahmud Abouhalima, another codefendant, who was in daily contact with Salameh and Yousef, purchased smokeless powder to make detonators for the World Trade Center bomb.

As the conspirators began to assemble the chemicals necessary to carry out the plot, Salameh rented a storage shed at the Space Station Storage Co., again, in Jersey City, NJ. All of the bomb-making materials were delivered to the conspirators at that shed.

By the end of January 1993, Yousef had placed two more orders with City Chemical for delivery to the shed. The purchases included: additional quantities of urea and nitric acid to make more urea nitrate for the bomb; more methyl alcohol for stabilizing nitroglycerin; and nearly 200 pounds of various metal powders, including aluminum, magnesium, and ferric oxide, to be added to the urea nitrate main charge to enhance that part of the bomb's destructive impact. Again, this scenario, use of the oxidization metals, was contemplated and described in Ajaj's terrorist manuals.

In all, the conspirators ordered and had delivered to the shed a total of 1,500 pounds of urea and approximately 1,700 pounds of nitric acid, most of which was used to make the World Trade Center bomb. The remaining portions were recovered at that shed during searches during the investigation following the bombing.

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