Posted on 06/15/2002 11:59:45 AM PDT by spycatcher
Latest Developments
BREAKING NEWS: Padilla Associate Nabbed By Feds In Florida, Had Ties To Benevolence International Foundation
If you've plodded through the Padiila-BIF-Terry Nichols stories (listed below) patiently, wading through the tedious speculation, wishing a real connection would emerge, well, your wait has ended! The feds have nabbed the missing link between the Benevolence International Foundation and Jose Padilla!
Who is John Doe #2 news and information clearinghouse
CNN - Feds arrest man linked to 'dirty bomb' suspect
Good point, but somehow I don't think the OK bombing conspiracy theorists are gonna let this little 'ol detail get in the way of a favored theory. Now if they could just find a way to convert McVeigh from an agnostic to a Muslim post mortem...
So for people that religiously believe that the OKC bombing was a job pulled off in isolation by a couple white guys have another connection to explain away as meaningless and vague and of course we know it "proves nothing." It's probably that they all just enjoyed drinking and bowling and watching NASCAR together.
From another journalist following the leads... Bryan Preston writes here at JunkyardBlog
"According to several witnesses, McVeigh and Nichols were joined in their travels shortly before the bombing by a third man, described as shorter than the other two, dark haired, muscular and with an olive complexion. Some described him as Middle Eastern, others, Italian, or simply “swarthy.” "...Many other witnesses insist that McVeigh traveled in the company of one or more men in addition to Nichols, and several described one of these men as shorter than McVeigh, dark haired, dark complexion. These witnesses place John Doe #2 with McVeigh at the Ryder rental office where he acquired the truck, at local restaurants, and even fleeing the scene of the bombing itself. None of these witnesses has ever been impeached or refuted."
He also recently wrote a great NRO piece on Iraq
"That same day, or possibly the following day, Debbie Nakanashi, an employee at the Post Office across from the Murrah Building, saw the pair when they stopped by and asked where they might find federal job applications. It was Nakanashi who provided the description for the well-known profile sketch of John Doe 2 in the baseball cap."
"Accompanying McVeigh was a short, stocky, handsome man, of either Mexican or American Indian descent. The man closely resembled the FBI sketch of John Doe 2, they said."
"The passenger in the pick-up was dark skinned with black hair, average height, and had a "real muscular build," she said. He was wearing a t-shirt and sun-glasses, and "looked just like the John Doe 2 sketch."
"Neighbors recalled seeing men who fit the general description of McVeigh and John Doe 2 at Nichols' Herrington home."
"It is Brescia, some investigators claim, who is the mysterious John Doe 2 originally sought by the FBI. Bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, along with investigator J.D. Cash, learned of Brescia's relationship to Strassmeir and McVeigh after talking to people at Elohim City and others in the white supremacist underground. The family filed a $30 million lawsuit against McVeigh, which includes Strassmeir, and named Brescia as John Doe 2."
"Robert Millar insists that Brescia, who is engaged to Millar's granddaughter, is not John Doe 2, but simply a "cleancut, college type boy."
"Yet several witnesses in Kansas claimed that Brescia closely matches the FBI's wanted sketch. Like John Doe 2, Brescia has a tattoo on his left arm. Curiously though, Brescia's tattoo is circular — a cross inside a wheel — the emblem of the Aryan Nations. The tattoo seen by Mike Moroz and other witnesses on John Doe 2 more closely resembled a dragon, an anchor, or a snake. But then again, according to numerous witnesses, there is more than one John Doe 2."
"Referring to the sting, he said, "What kind of gives me a bad taste, is that all the ATF agents were apparently not in the office during the blast, all of them." As to just what the sting involved, Strassmeir claimed he didn't know. But regarding John Doe 2, he said, "For some reason they don't look for this guy anymore. That, for some reason, I think is very strange."
"Back in Junction City, the manager of the Great Western Inn was watching TV with two reporters when the sketch of John Doe 2 flashed on the screen. The manager immediately recognized the man as the person who had stayed in room 107 on April 17. "He spoke broken English," said the manager. "[He] gave a foreign name and was driving a Ryder truck."
"Gary Lewis, a pressman for the Journal Record newspaper, had just stepped outside to smoke his pipe when he remembered he had left something in his car. As he walked down the alley, a yellow Mercury peeled away from its spot near the Murrah Building, jumped a concrete barricade, swerved to avoid hitting a dumpster, then bore down on him, forcing him up onto the curb. Lewis got a good look at the driver, describing him as one Timothy James McVeigh, and his passenger as resembling the sketch of John Doe 2. He said the car had an Oklahoma tag which was dangling by one bolt."
"The FBI wouldn't say if they had checked out Hussaini. Nor would they clear him. They told KFOR that they were "not in the business of clearing suspects." Yet, as Jayna Davis pointed out, they did clear numerous other John Doe 2 suspects, including Robert Jacks, Gary Land, and Todd Bunting, the Army private seen at Elliott's Body Shop. Interestingly, they then used the Bunting incident to say that John Doe 2 had been a red herring all along. John Doe 2, the FBI claimed, had never existed."
"When the news reports first came about some Islamic group being responsible, well Haider kind of laughed about that," recalled Cranfield. "I heard they found three babies that was dead from the blast, and I went and told the guys… and John Doe 2 (Cranfield's reference to Hussaini) started crying. He went out on the porch to cover his face and he stood by the wall crying. He was upset that children got hurt. He was really upset. And Haider was laughing because he was crying."
"The date November, 1994 may be prophetic. Three witnesses in Stillwater, about an hour's drive north of Oklahoma City, saw a man who closely resembles Ramzi Yousef in late October, early November, 1994. The man, who called himself Y.T., was managing Boomer's Used Auto Sales in Stillwater, along with a man who resembled John Doe 2. He drove a yellow Mercury Marquis similar to Timothy McVeigh's, albeit with a vinyl roof."
"Could the unidentified leg have actually belonged to the real bomber — a black Muslim prepared to sacrifice himself or herself for the cause? Perhaps this explains why authorities allegedly recovered no bodies that matched this leg. It is possible the leg belonged to an additional bomber who was disintegrated by the blast. This could also explain the confused look Daina Bradley witnessed on John Doe 2's face after he walked to the back of the Ryder truck. Perhaps upon opening the door, he was confronted with a comrade who ordered him away, then set off the device, neatly severing himself or herself in the process. "
"Barbara Whittenberg, owner of the Sante Fe Trail Diner in Herrington, recalled seeing a Ryder truck, along with McVeigh, Nichols, and John Doe 2, on Saturday, April 15. The men had stopped by the restaurant for breakfast at 6:00 a.m., and Whittenberg reported seeing a large Ryder truck at Geary State Fishing Lake later that afternoon."
"The reader will recall that this is the exact same day that Phyliss Kingsley and Linda Kuhlman saw the convoy, including "McVeigh," John Doe 2 and 3, and the Ryder truck at the Hi Way Grill just south of Oklahoma City. It was approximately 6:00 p.m."
"McVeigh picked his truck up on Monday. John Doe 2 had his truck the weekend before. The fact that there were two trucks I'm very comfortable with."
"Another incident not made public until the County Grand Jury investigation was the recollection of Gary Antene, who saw McVeigh and John Doe 2 at Danny's Hobby Shop in Oklahoma City the Saturday before the bombing. The two men asked him if Danny's carried 100 percent nitromethane fuel."
"While the Justice Department (DoJ) focused its efforts on McVeigh and Nichols, scant attention was focused on other suspects — John Doe 2, the mysterious entity who was seen with McVeigh, and had accompanied him the morning of the bombing. Witnesses also saw him with McVeigh in the Murrah Building, in stores, at restaurants, at a bar, and at the truck rental shop before the bombing. Still others claim to have seen him speeding away from the scene. All in all, there are almost two-dozen witnesses who reported seeing John Doe 2."
"The search for John Doe 2 quickly became the biggest man-hunt in FBI history. What authorities weren't saying however, was that not only was there a John Doe 2, there were least four John Does! Yet the issue was quickly and quietly narrowed down to just one John Doe 2."
"Then on June 15, the FBI backtracked again. "Periodically you just get something in an investigation that goes nowhere. John Doe 2 goes nowhere. It doesn't show up in associations, it doesn't show up in phone calls. It doesn't show up among the Army buddies of McVeigh…"
"The previous day, the FBI put out a story that John Doe 2 may have actually been Todd Bunting, a soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas who had rented a truck at the same dealer McVeigh had. The FBI stated that Bunting wore clothing similar to that ascribed to John Doe 2, that he had a tattoo in the same place, and that he wore a hat similar to John Doe 2's."
Then, on January 28, 1996, the prosecution switched tracks again, officially resurrecting the Todd Bunting story. In a long brief, the government disclosed that Elliott's employee Tom Kessinger was the only one who could recall John Doe 2 well enough to describe him.
Now, after a November interview with a prosecutor and two FBI agents, Kessinger was "confident that he had Todd Bunting in mind when he provided the description for the John Doe 2 composite." Kessinger, the brief continued, is "now unsure" whether anyone accompanied McVeigh. But his two co-workers "continue to believe that two men came in to rent the truck."
In that brief, the prosecution speculated that the defense might use "Kessinger's admitted confusion" to challenge his identification of McVeigh.
It seemed it was less "Kessinger's admitted confusion" than a deliberate fabrication by prosecutors and the FBI to cover up the existence of John Doe 2. As Kessinger told bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, who conducted his own investigation, "I don't know how they came up with that one."
Kessinger later changed his story at the urging of federal prosecutors Patrick Ryan and Joseph Hartzler. During a pretrial conference, Jones challenged Kessinger:
"How can you be so wrong 60 hours after the event and so right a year and a half later?" Jones asked him. "Could you be changing your mind because the government wants you to?"
"No," Kessinger replied.[774]
Yet on March 25 and April 5, Hartzler had written Jones that "The existence and identity of this John Doe 2, whom we are confident is not Mr. Bunting, is the subject of a continuing investigation."
And in a May 1, 1996 letter written by Hartzler, the government prosecutor informed Jones that Kessinger and Beemer had been shown a picture of the cap Bunting wore when he picked up a truck on April 18. "They both stated that the cap was not the same one they saw on John Doe II," Hartzler wrote, "and they reaffirmed that this second individual accompanied 'Kling' when he rented the truck."[775]
Yet at a hearing on April 9, federal prosecutor Beth Wilkinson stated that the government "has no information showing anyone but Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh were the masterminds of this bombing."[776]
"They keep telling us they're looking for John Doe No. 2, but then they turn around and give statements indicating that they don't believe there is a John Doe No. 2," said a woman whose husband was killed in the bombing.
"I think they (the government) knows who John Doe 2 is, and they are protecting him," said Heidelberg in an interview in Jubilee Magazine. "This is because John Doe 2 is either a government agent or informant and they can't afford for that to get out."[785]
Eventually, the FBI dropped the John Doe 2 lead altogether. John Doe 2 had been a red herring, a false lead, the Justice Department claimed. John Doe 2 had never really existed.
[That's as far as I've gone in Hoffman's book, Chapeter 6, footnote 785]
Osama’s New Recruits: White Power and Al Qaeda Unite Against America
....Yesterday, new details emerged yesterday about al Muhajir's(Jose Pedilla) life in the United States, including his conversion from Roman Catholicism to Islam in the mid-1990s. The leader of the Darul Uloom Institute, a school in Pembroke Pines, Fla., where al Muhajir studied Islam in 1995, described him as an extremely observant Muslim who stood out at the relatively liberal facility.....Darul Uloom Institute was one of the places where he attended Saturday morning courses in 1995.... Al Muhajir used the name "Ibrahim" during the three to six months that he attended, Mohamed said; the name also appears on marriage records. "He used to come, but he just disappeared. I am so baffled," he said. "He was a very quiet, quiet guy."
More digging should be able to pin that 3-6 months down to the specific months involved.
Your agenda is showing.
The Davidian standoff was February 28 to April 19, 1993. Link.
George W. Bush was elected Governor on November 8, 1994, with 53.5 percent of the vote. In an historic re-election victory, he became the first Texas Governor to be elected to consecutive four-year terms on November 3, 1998, winning 68.6 percent of the vote. Link
Go back to DU, your lies won't draw flies there..
I know you're not wearing any foil :)
subgator
Padilla didn't invent plot in Broward, mosque says
BY WANDA J. DeMARZO AND DANIEL de VISE
The leader of a Pembroke Pines mosque said Wednesday that the alleged ''dirty bomb'' plot wasn't hatched in Broward County -- an assertion backed up by federal agents, who said detainee Jose Padilla contacted al Qaeda operatives after leaving the United States in 1998.
''I want to make sure that there is nothing like that going on here,'' said Maulana Shafayat Mohamed, prayer leader at Darul Uloom Islamic Institute. ``I just like a clean operation and I don't even want to smell things like that around.''
Padilla is the third terrorism suspect linked to Darul Uloom. He studied the Koran there. Two other Broward men accused this year with plotting a bombing campaign in South Florida worshiped at Darul Uloom, one of about 20 Muslim mosques in Broward and Miami-Dade counties. But that, Mohamed said, is pure coincidence.
''We are the largest [Muslim] congregation in South Florida,'' Mohamed said. ``I think people may want to use us a scapegoat . . . We don't tolerate radicals. We are a peaceful group.''
The only common factor among the three is that ''they just passed through our mosque,'' Mohamed said.
MUSLIM COMMUNITY
Federal sources told The Herald on Wednesday that while Padilla was clearly involved with the South Florida Muslim community, it remains unclear when he turned from moderate Islamic beliefs to an extreme doctrine that led him to allegedly plot a bombing.
''The difficult part for us now is trying to determine which of the many people he came in contact with hold those views, let alone whether or not there are links to al Qaeda,'' one source said.
The FBI has found no connection between Padilla and the Sept. 11 hijackers, several of whom lived in Broward County.
''All the evidence that there were links to al Qaeda is from his trips abroad,'' one source said.
Padilla's interest in Islam was apparent when he worked at a Davie Taco Bell in 1992, following his release from the Broward County Jail where he served 10 months after a road rage incident.
His former boss was Mohammad Javed, co-founder of the School of Islamic Studies at Broward in Sunrise.
Javed said when Padilla told him he was thinking about converting, he advised Padilla
to look in the Yellow Pages for an Islamic center.
''He didn't tell me when he and his girlfriend [Cherie Maria Stultz] converted, but I learned they had accepted Islam into their life,'' Javed said. ``He seemed to be a joiner, and he was poor.''
In June 1994, Jose Padilla officially became known as Ibrahim, following a hearing before Broward Circuit Judge John A. Frusciante at the courthouse in Fort Lauderdale. Padilla prayed and studied at Darul Uloom from 1995 to 1997.
EARLIER DAYS
Mohamed remembers Padilla as Ibrahim, no longer the troublemaker of his earlier days, but a quiet young man who always wore the traditional Muslim scarf favored by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. A photograph released by the school shows Padilla posing with friends, a red scarf draped over his head.
''The head dress is the type you see in Palestine; you don't see it in the U.S.,'' Mohamed said.
Padilla attended Saturday morning study sessions for the recently converted, after a while just ''disappearing from the scene.'' Nine men and three women made up the group. Women are not uncommon for the Pembroke Pines institute because of its liberal bent, Mohamed said.
''Whoever did what, they never did it here,'' Mohamed said. ``People know that they can't do any foolishness here.''
Herald staff writers Hannah Sampson and Beth Reinhard contributed to this report.
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