We were duped about Okla. bombing

What else should we have expected from this puked up hairball?

Much as I detest Clinton, I didn't notice Bush exposing this lie or those around TWA 800, Flight 587, etc., etc.

It seems there is a US government policy to either (when possible) pretend terrorist acts are accidents or (when it's obviously terrorism but not quite so obvious who the perpetrators are) create fairy tale like stories that deny the true terrorists credit. It's like Americans can't be trusted to know the truth.

"I think some of you are willing to go any length to believe that ... the "cigarette smoking man" does in fact run the US government. Repeat after me...The X-Files was only a TV program"

Tell that to Kenneth Timmerman.

Insight Online World Exclusive
Posted April 19, 2002
By Kenneth R. Timmerman

The retirement of career FBI Special Agent Danny Defenbaugh, accused by defense attorneys and plaintiffs in the Oklahoma City bombing case of withholding key evidence, wasn't the only dramatic development in the continuing controversies surrounding the April 19, 1995, attack that killed 168 people.

Insight has learned that the widow of Philippine-government intelligence agent Edwin Angeles has provided audiotaped testimony to an investigator working for the American victims' families that directly ties Iraqi intelligence agents to Terry Nichols, the man sentenced in 1998 to life in prison for his role in bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Building seven years ago.

Elmina Abdul is the 27-year-old widow of Angeles, one of the cofounders of the Abu Sayyaf group, a Muslim separatist terrorist organization in the Philippines whose members trained in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan. Her astonishing story, revealed in this exclusive story for the first time, could blow the lid off what a growing number of people believe is a U.S. government cover-up of vital evidence in the Oklahoma City bombing case. It also exposes an alleged plot ginned up by former Philippine president Fidel Ramos to manipulate Abu Sayyaf as a means of enhancing his personal political power.

With the knowledge that she was dying of liver disease, Elmina agreed to meet with Dorian Zumel Sicat, a Manila Times correspondent serving as an investigative liaison in the Philippines and the Pacific Rim for Oklahoma City lawyer Mike Johnston, who represents the victims' families. "I want to tell the truth of what I know of my late husband," she said in a taped audio statement.

Angeles was "what they call a 'deep-penetration agent'" who was working for "some very powerful men in the DND," the Philippine national defense-intelligence agency, Elmina said. Angeles was arrested in 1995 after he had negotiated a deal to turn himself in to the Philippine authorities. By that point, the Abu Sayyaf he had helped create in 1991 with bin Laden protégé Abdurajjak Abu Bakr Janjalani had carried out a series of terrorist attacks. These included a failed assault on a U.S. Information Agency library in Manila in January 1991 that was part of a worldwide terrorist campaign against U.S. interests orchestrated by Iraq during the Persian Gulf War.

"Does the name 'Ramzi Yousef' mean something to you, Mr. Sicat?" Elmina asked. Angeles had extensive meetings with Yousef and two Americans, including one whom he called "Terry" or "The Farmer," she said.

Angeles ultimately was cleared of terrorism charges at trial, when documents proving he was working as a government agent were produced. He was released from prison in 1996 — but not before he provided astonishing details during a videotaped interrogation by Philippine police authorities of his activities with Abu Sayyaf, including the secret meetings with Iraqi intelligence agent Yousef, Nichols and the second American identified in the document as John Lepney.

The earliest meetings took place at a Del Monte canning plant in Davao in late 1992 and early 1993 — just prior to the first World Trade Center bombing. Later meetings with Nichols, Yousef and the second American — whose name has never been revealed until now — took place at Angeles' house in late 1994, according to a report on that interrogation which has been obtained by investigators working for attorney Johnston, who has been joined by Judicial Watch in representing families of those murdered in the Oklahoma City bombing.

Angeles also revealed the meetings to Elmina, who became his third wife in 1997, "because he knew that he would soon be killed," she said in her audiotaped statement with Sicat, which was witnessed by a Philippine-government official. "He wanted me to know everything so that if anything happened to him I could tell others." Also present at those meetings was a half-brother of Yousef, who was using the pseudonym Ahmad Hassim, she said.

"They met almost every day for one week. They met in an empty bodega [warehouse]. They talked about bombings. They mentioned bombing government buildings in San Francisco, St. Louis and in Oklahoma. The Americans wanted instructions on how to make and to explode bombs. He [Edwin] told me that Janjalani was very interested in paying them much money to explode the buildings. The money was coming from Yousef and the other Arab."

When asked if Angeles had told her the results of those conversations, Elmina replied: "He told me that the Americans exploded one bomb in Oklahoma in 1995, after he was arrested and after we first met."

Later in the interview, she chided Sicat for not knowing that Yousef was "representing Iraq and Saddam Hussein."

"Did Edwin tell you that?" Sicat asked.

"Not only Edwin, but others that were close to us, before he was killed," Elmina said. "One time, a [Philippine-army] soldier and Edwin were talking secretly. I was there because Edwin demanded [it]. The soldier ordered Edwin never to tell anybody about the Iraqis."

On Jan. 14, 1999, Elmina was waiting for her husband in an open-air market in Isabela, the provincial capital of Basilan province. Suddenly, as he emerged from a nearby mosque, she watched as two of his former associates walked up behind him and, with .45-caliber automatics, pumped six bullets into him. He staggered toward her and died in her arms.

The video interrogation linking Nichols to Yousef, bin Laden and Iraq initially was obtained by Stephen Jones, the defense attorney who represented convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. But at the insistence of federal prosecutors, trial judge Richard P. Matsch refused to admit it into evidence.

The judge also refused to admit into evidence the testimony of Yousef coconspirator Abdul Hakim Murad, who was a federal prisoner at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York City. Murad was awaiting trial for his part in Project Bojinka, a plot hatched up by Yousef to blow up 11 U.S. 747 jetliners over the Pacific Ocean in 1995 (see "Iraqi Connection to Oklahoma Bombing," April 15). On the day of the Oklahoma City bombing he told his jailers that Yousef had orchestrated the plot.

"Why should Murad be believed?" Johnston asks rhetorically. "For one thing, Murad made his 'confession' voluntarily and spontaneously. Most important, Murad tied Ramzi Yousef to the Oklahoma City bombing long before Terry Nichols was publicly identified as a suspect."

Johnston informed Jones last week he would be serving him with a desk subpoena to obtain this and other materials that were either sealed by the court or not admitted as evidence in the McVeigh trial. Shortly after Johnston got off the phone with him, Jones received threatening calls from federal prosecutors in Denver and Oklahoma City, warning him not to release the materials, Insight is told by a close associate of the lawyer. Jones did not return several calls by press time.

FBI spokesman Bill Carter tells Insight the FBI was unaware of a "foreign terrorist connection" to the Oklahoma City bombing. "There is no evidence of a foreign connection in our files," he says. "The Oklahoma City bombing was investigated thoroughly by the FBI; no evidence was found that would tie it to any foreign terrorist group. If we had found any evidence, it would have been presented."

That statement, like so many others from the government in this murky case, appears to be extraordinarily misleading to the families of victims still not convinced that they or the American public know the full story of what happened seven years ago.

In the Philippines, the real story of the Abu Sayyaf and its ties to Iraq, bin Laden and to former president Ramos — who is planning a comeback into Philippine politics — is a dangerous topic.

In his videotaped interrogation, Angeles says Yousef first approached him in July 1989 as the "personal envoy" of bin Laden to set up a new base for regional Islamic expansion on the Muslim island of Mindanao. At the time, bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammad Jamal Khalifa, was operating commercial front companies in the Philippines for bin Laden. This apparently led to the creation of the Abu Sayyaf.

A former CIA station chief in Manila confirms to Insight that bin Laden came to the Philippines personally in 1992 and was flown down to Mindanao in a government C-130 aircraft by then-president Ramos. "Bin Laden presented himself as a wealthy Saudi who wanted to invest in Muslim areas and donate money to charity," the former CIA officer says.

While Yousef was collecting money from bin Laden, he was taking orders from Iraq and is believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have carried out the June 20, 1994, bombing of a Shiite Muslim shrine in Mashad, Iran, on orders from Iraq. Yousef reportedly carried out that attack with help from his own father and a younger brother, Abdul Muneem, in conjunction with an Iraqi front group, the Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization, also known as the People's Mujahideen Organization of Iran.

Angeles "knew he was going to be killed by his own people once he was released from jail," Sicat tells Insight in a telephone interview from Davao, a city on Mindanao. "The question is, who were his own people? Abu Sayyaf, or the cabal who had Angeles help set them up?"

Angeles' second wife, who had prepared the meals for Nichols and Yousef, was gunned down during a government raid on an Abu Sayyaf safe house in 1996. Elmina died last month just days after giving her taped audio statements to Sicat, who tells Insight that he has received death threats and been shot at in recent weeks by unknown assailants. He recently has been given round-the- clock police protection by the government, which is investigating the attacks.

If the remaining witnesses live long enough, the only question left is whether the Bush administration will order the FBI to reopen its files. Or, as some of the lawyers in the case and their clients fear, the administration will endorse what they believe — and testimony now in hand suggests — was a wider conspiracy that was hidden by the Clinton administration and Janet Reno's Justice Department. It may require full and open congressional hearings if the current administration refuses to help or otherwise blocks the federal courts from re-examining the case to find out why the U.S. government shut down preliminary investigations into possible overseas links to the murder of Americans in downtown Oklahoma City.

Kenneth R. Timmerman is a senior writer for Insight magazine.

One thing that I can't believe is that just this one bomb took out the entire building.

Neither could a retired U.S. Army General, an expert in explosives, who did a detailed study of it. He concluded that the damage done and the condition of the powdered concrete at the base of the building indicated the positioning of specific charges at the base of structural columns in the basement of the building.

If Saddam is such a demon,

McVeigh was totally nuts ... apparently he never took any of Uday Hussein's exploits into consideration ... Uday is totally, totally insane ... Time magazine had a good article about 1996 or so that showed all the inbreeding in the Hussein family and it was no small amount of recursive lines ...

Oh Thank you so much for the lesson on manners in Texas.....I would never have had any idea how a REAL Texan handles anything........

You are the one who claimed this was a dupe by the Bush administration to gain votes or sympathy for an attack....I am curious, just what part of this article is BS? You doubt the Middle Eastern association? Do you actually believe this was a right wing attack perpetrated by one or two pathetic skin heads?

I stand by my statement Hillary......and I can assure you, no one in Texas would miss you.........

It does seem fishy to see this in a mainstream paper, just as we are running up to a probable invasion of Iraq; but just because the timing is fishy doesn't mean it isn't true!!

Have you checked the source. I wouldnt be surprised if it was a commentary and not a new report. Hell, it may even have been a letter to the editor.

The other topic is the loose ends and mysteries surrounding McVeigh, Nichols, "John Doe #2," and the OKC bombing. These questions are still alive and important. They are a major reason why many came to Free Republic in the first place, some years ago.

No wonder this place seems full of more fruit cakes than five years ago.

Hear it from a friend, then, and read THIS LINK.

Friday, April 26, 2002

RP cops aware of long-term
rightwing, Muslim connection

By Dorian Zumel-Sicat

DAVAO CITY — The lawyer of executed Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has provided victims of the tragedy with a report on an interrogation linking an American trader with rightwing Americans, agents of Iraq, Osama bin Laden and the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG).

However, the most striking thing about the transcript is that it shows Philippine police have long been aware of operational ties between local Islamic radicals and rightwing foreigners.

Why the strange alliance exists remains a puzzle to police and military intelligence agents. A senior counter-terrorist expert says commerce and short-term goals could account for the unusual ties. “Eventually, they’ll be killing each other. But for now, they seem to be working together.”

New case

US Federal agents ignored evidence of these rightwing/Islamic links in the aftermath of the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. In the end, they succeeded in pinning the blame solely on McVeigh and his pal, Terry Nichols, who was married to Filipino women, one of them the daughter of Cebuano cop Eduardo Torres.

The suit filed by the Washington DC-based Judicial Watch on behalf of the victims of the 1995 blast has unearthed evidence earlier disallowed in the McVeigh trial. The victims also allege a federal cover-up of Iraqi involvement though the reason remains unclear.

McVeigh’s lawyer, Stephen Jones, provided the new plaintiffs with a report on the ‘soft interrogation’ of slain ASG co-founder and government deep cover agent, Edwin Angeles. The Manila Times obtained a copy of the document.

The report names John Lepney, an import/export trader, as among those who met in 1992 and 1993 with Angeles, Ramsey Yousef, McVeigh accomplice Terry Nichols, and some unnamed Iraqis, in a Muslim ghetto in Tibongco, this city. The meeting took place just months prior to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Series of meetings

The Angeles interrogation transcript dates back to 1996. It shows the ASG officer talking with an official of the Philippine National Police and another from the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). Also present were two lawyers hired by Jones to witness the interrogation. The Manila Times was requested to withhold identities of the two lawyers and the two officials pending the Washington trial.

The report pictured Angeles as eager to talk, almost garrulous, offering information on mail-order brides and terrorists. It was the police officer who showed Angeles a photo album of alleged mail-order bride facilitators.

The Abu Sayyaf leader leafed through and pointed out one of the men. In the vernacular, he said, “This man I know, this is John Lepney.” He said the American lived in Davao City and was known to import appliances and electronics. Angeles knew Lepney enough to join him in massage sessions at the Plaza Roman, also in this city.

Other meetings, however, were not so innocent. Among Angeles and Lepney’s companions in subsequent gatherings were Nichols and Abdul Basis — who would later be known as Ramzi Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing.

At a meeting in the vicinity of the Del Monte labeling factory here, they were joined by Wali Khan, a Jordanian pilot who would later be arrested in Malaysia, and Abdul Hakim Murad, Yousef’s co-accused in the World Trade Center blast.

Angeles did not state in the interrogation what the meeting was about, but mentioned that Nichols had passed himself as a farmer. He also volunteered having stayed for at least eight months in Tibongco.

Disallowed

An intelligence source here told The Manila Times, “It is strange that people like Nichols, and this Lepney would go to that part of Tibongco. At that time it was a stronghold of Muslim separatists. They must have had serious business there for them to take the risk, even if they were accompanied by people like Angeles.”

Robert Bickel, senior investigator for the law firm of John Michael Johnston in Oklahoma City, and the representative firm Judicial Watch in Washington, DC, said the reason for the new evidence is that only certain parts of Angeles’ statements were allowed as evidence during the McVeigh and Nichols trials.

“Jones filed objections to the motions to allow the statement but to no avail. That is why we’re only hearing about Lepney now,” Bickel said in a telephone interview.

The Philippine intelligence source told The Times, that cops then were interested in knowing who bankrolled Nichols, a big spender who did not have any clear source of income. It was not clear, however, why no cop had interviewed Lepney if they were really interested in him.

Adventures

“We have to remember that Nichols had no gainful employment after his 1989 hardship discharge from the US Army. He was nothing but a farm worker who could never afford the trips to the Philippines that he made from 1990 to 1994,” the source said.

The same source also noted that Marife Nichols went to the United States supposedly to join her husband in 1994, carrying with her $4,000 in cash, and from between $10,000 to $18,000 in gold coins.

Nichols left his estranged wife, Lana Padilla with at least $20,000 in cash and up to $100,000 in gold and silver before he made his last trip to the Philippines in 1994, just months before the Oklahoma City bombing.

“Lepney appears to be the guy to find. More interesting, is the fact that the prosecution was adamant in keeping the Angeles statement out of evidence. The reason for it was the absence of a warm body. That still doesn’t hold water today,” Bickel told The Times.

The Times was able to confirm that Lepney did indeed reside and do business in Davao City during 1990 to 1996. “He would come in often. He did enjoy Tanduay and Coke, and he loved kinilaw. When he became drunk he would many times brag about his adventures with Moro rebels, but most of us just ignored him,” says a popular bar owner who has asked to remain anonymous.

Lepney’s present whereabouts, or where he exactly did business in this city are both unknown at this time.

Why are posting facts like that? Don't you know how scary facts are for some people? Geesh, does "Dave S." (the wacky Iraqi?) have to call you a tin-foiler to make you stop implicating his comrades?

Come on, you know we can trust our lives and our buildings on the faith that little Timmy McV is telling the truth. Why would he ever want to be remembered as a brilliant mastermind hero to his buddies instead of a pathetic patsy snitch?

will someone tell me why McVeigh would allow himself to be executed without mentioning (in his defense) the participation of Iraquis

Well, let's see...because, regardless of what you or I think of his actions or his reasoning, he had honor and integrity and loyalty to his compatriots. (something he may have learned in the military) Then again he may not have known anything about an Iraqui connection and was duped. There are two good possibilities that don't require stretching the imagination except for those who can't wrap their minds around the concept of true honor which has nothing to do with whose side one is on.

" Have you checked the source. I wouldnt be surprised if it was a commentary and not a new report. Hell, it may even have been a letter to the editor."

Richard Mellon Scaife **DOES NOT** own the Manila Times.

"...will someone tell me why McVeigh would allow himself to be executed without mentioning (in his defense) the participation of Iraquis (whom he had fought against in the Persian Gulf War)?"

Why would he want to share the credit? It would have made him look less competent to perform what he considered a great act if he admitted that he needed help from Iraqis.

Irrespective of the issue, whatever the government would have us believe about it is almost certainly a lie.

I guess the associated press is part of the conspiracy to make Middle Easteners and Clinton's FBI loook bad huh? I noticed you didn't dispute one fact in the story. Too bad you can't use your mind to attack facts and instead have to attack people and completely misrepresent their arguments to do so.

What facts? That the Murrah Building blew up and that McVeigh was arrested? What has the AP got to do with it. This is NOT a news story, it is all commentary presented in a column like you might find on the Editorial page of the NY Times. Check the link and dont be so guilable. The idiot that wrote the COLUMN,IT WAS NOT NEWS REPORTING, YOU OR ANY OTHER TIN FOILER COULD HAVE SUBMITTED IT AND THEY MIGHT RUN IT FOR GRINS. His name is Ralph R. Reiland, the B. Kenneth Simon professor of free enterprise at Robert Morris University, is a local restaurateur. E-mail him at rrreiland@aol.com. Ever hear of this bozo? Me neither.

So tell us all then are you an Islamic disruptor with an obviously fake Americanized name? Or are you an Iranian or Iraqi trying to pretend your country isn't invoved in terrorism?

Neither I guess one of the few Americans not influenced by the flouride in the water. My heritage is Swedish you moron. Guess you didnt catch many spys in your days. Maybe you were working both sides.

I have no doubt that there are many people involved in the OKC bombing.........my complaint was that the Bush Administration was being accused of pulling this story out to gain votes....... where, in the article, is that supported?

Ever hear of David Schippers? The DEMOCRAT who did as much, if not more, than any Republican to try to bring clinton to justice?

David Schippers believes that there is more going on with OKC than either administration will admit. He even claims to have an ID on John Doe.

The FACTS and the EVIDENCE point to at least two explosions, one on the inside of the building, and several more people than the government admits to being involved.

If you want to look at more evidence and then make a decision that isn't based on ignorance, go to infowars.com and there is plenty of credible, documented information including info from Schippers.

But if you'd rather not look at evidence and would rather contradict Schippers, be my guest.

One thing that I can't believe is that just this one bomb took out the entire building.

Neither could a retired U.S. Army General, an expert in explosives, who did a detailed study of it.

Actually, it was a retired USAF general.

General Benton K. Partin. A retired U.S. Air Force Brigadier General, Partin had responsibility for the design and testing of almost every non-nuclear weapon device used in the Air Force, including precision-guided weapons designed to destroy hardened targets like the Alfred P. Murrah Building. Partin has exhaustively researched the bombing and the resulting pattern of damage.

Read more about Partin's findings at this posting.

The Mannlicher-Carcanno Bomb

Have you checked the source. I wouldnt be surprised if it was a commentary and not a new report.

Hey brainiac, you don't read much do you? It *is* a commentary, based on facts recently reported by the Associated Press, and other info made public by the FBI and other legit sources.

This is the same paper that has the journalist that wrote 'Black Hawk Down'.

Seems like a good rag.

Tell that to Kenneth Timmerman.

Big deal, the guy is employed by Sun Yat Moon and the "Moonies." Im sure that gives him excellent Asian reporting credentials.