PILOT: OSAMA'S JIHAD WAS 'STRICTLY BUSINESS'
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3a8ba08944c8.htm
News/Current Events News
Source: New York Post
Published: Thursday, February 15, 2001 Author: By DEVLIN BARRETT
Posted on 02/15/2001 01:25:29 PST by JohnHuang2
A former pilot for Osama bin Laden testified yesterday that he helped the terror boss buy a plane to ship men and missiles around the world, but was told it was "not jihad . . . just business."
Essam Al Ridi, who in the '80s fought alongside bin Laden in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, testified yesterday in Manhattan federal court against four accused terrorists charged with working for bin Laden.
The four are accused of conspiring to blow up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people.
Al Ridi said he knew bin Laden, but didn't like the Saudi millionaire because he used his money to become a military leader without having any combat experience or training.
After the Afghan war, bin Laden tried to woo Al Ridi back to work for him by asking him to buy a $250,000 plane the terror boss said he needed for businesses.
Al Ridi, a naturalized U.S. citizen now living in Egypt, says he did not think bin Laden was leading a true Muslim holy war, and told him so.
"I do oppose the fact that you are a rich man and trying to be a decision-maker," Al Ridi said he told bin Laden. "I think what you have done to some of the guys [in Afghanistan] is, flat, killing."
Bin Laden answered: "This is not jihad. This is strictly business."
Al Ridi said he later flew five men to Kenya, but did not know what the men did once he left them there.
He also said one of bin Laden's lieutenants, Wadih El Hage, talked to him about flying American-made Stinger missiles from Afghanistan to Sudan for bin Laden. Al Ridi said he didn't know if the Stingers were ever shipped to Sudan.
El Hage is accused of overseeing bin Laden's business operations as well as the terror cell in Kenya that eventually attacked the U.S. Embassy there.
Al Ridi said he turned down bin Laden's long-term job offer, although he occasionally agreed to fly single trips for him.
All that ended, Al Ridi said, when the poorly maintained plane crashed at an airport in Khartoum, Sudan.
The pilot said he was so scared after the wreck of being identified as working for bin Laden that he rushed straight to the nearest airline terminal to get out of town.
"I told them, ‘I need any flight, any destination out of Khartoum,'" he testified. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------