500 Days: Secrets and Lies in the Terror Wars

by Kurt Eichenwald

  A dial tone. The man had hung up.

  • • •

  On the two-hour flight the next day, Fouda’s nerves were frayed. His contact seemed tied to al-Qaeda. When he arrived, would there be a gang of fundamentalists lying in wait to kidnap him?

  His plane landed at Quaid-e-Azam Airport. Fouda left the terminal, flagged down a cab, and told the driver to take him to the Karachi Marriott Hotel on Abdullah Haroon Road. As the taxi maneuvered through traffic, the anonymous source—whom Fouda had taken to calling Abu Bakr, the name of the prophet Muhammad’s father-in-law—called the cell phone again. Fouda told him that he was on his way to the Marriott.

  “Ask the driver to take you to the Regent Plaza instead,” the man said.

  Fouda gave the new destination and the driver changed course toward one of the city’s major boulevards, Shara-e-Faisal. The hotel resembled a white, multitiered wedding cake amid schools, shopping centers, and government buildings. Fouda checked in to Room 322 and stepped into a hot shower, only to hear a knock at the door. He dashed out to welcome . . . whoever it was.

  The man came inside and greeted Fouda. About twenty minutes later, as they shared a meal, Fouda’s visitor mentioned almost casually that bin Laden was still alive and was a devoted viewer of Al Jazeera.

  “How does he watch us now?” Fouda asked.

  “Do not worry, Brother Yosri. Sheikh Osama, God protect him, is alive and well. Whatever he misses he gets on tape.”

  The conversation turned to Al Jazeera programming and the fax that the man had sent to Fouda weeks before with a detailed proposal for a 9/11 anniversary news package. They were drinking tea when the al-Qaeda envoy ended the conversation.

  “Do not worry, Brother Yosri,” he said. “You will, God willing, know everything tomorrow.”

  • • •

  Following new instructions, Fouda slipped out the back door of the hotel, hailed a taxi, and made his way to another location. There, he stood by a staircase for several minutes until another stranger arrived.

  “I have just given my mother-in-law a lift home,” the man said. “We can go now.”

  Fouda was ushered into a car and driven to another part of town. His host parked, left the car, and walked to a phone booth. When he returned, another changeup—Fouda was to take a rickshaw to the next location. There, he was picked up by another automobile, then driven out of Karachi to a road where a third car waited.

  A different man appeared. He blindfolded Fouda for the next leg of his circuitous journey.

  • • •

  They arrived at the final stop. With his eyes still covered, Fouda was led into a building and up four flights of stairs. He heard a doorbell. Once he was inside the room, someone removed his blindfold.

  “It is okay now,” a voice said. “You can open your eyes.”

  Fouda blinked. A bearded man was standing two feet away from him. It was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

  Sheikh Mohammed led Fouda to another room. A second man was there waiting, and the reporter recognized him as Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 9/11 conspirator who was a close friend of Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers. He, like Sheikh Mohammed, was one of the United States’ most wanted terrorists.

  “Recognized us yet?” Sheikh Mohammed said.

  The men sat down.

  “They say you are terrorists,” Fouda blurted out.

  Bin al-Shibh smiled, but said nothing.

  “They are right,” Sheikh Mohammed replied. “We are terrorists.”

  Hours passed. The men prayed, drank tea, chatted, but there was none of the bare-knuckled back-and-forth that resembled an interview with a journalist. This was just a time for the three men to grow comfortable with each other. The only useful information that Fouda garnered so far was the realization that bin al-Shibh had written the fax he had received in London. Finally, at almost ten o’clock at night, Fouda ventured into his first real question.

  He looked Sheikh Mohammed in the eye. “Did you do it?” he asked.

  “No filming today,” Sheikh Mohammed replied without a hint that he had heard the question. “And you do not have to worry about a camera or a cameraman for tomorrow. We will provide everything.”

  Bin al-Shibh broke in. “You will be going straight from here to your flight whenever we are done.”

  Fouda resigned himself to learning nothing of value that day. But then Sheikh Mohammed stared him in the face, his shoulders erect and his chin up.

  “I am the head of the al-Qaeda military committee,” he announced. “And yes, we did it.”

  • • •

  The hearing for Zacarias Moussaoui on the morning of April 22 was supposed to be a routine judicial housecleaning. His lawyers, led by Frank Dunham, had filed motions with the Federal District Court in Alexandria seeking to improve the conditions of their client’s imprisonment while he awaited trial. There was no excitement among reporters packing the gallery; it wasn’t likely they would get a story out of such a dry proceeding.

  At ten o’clock, Judge Leonie Brinkema mounted the bench and the clerk called the case. Moussaoui, clad in a green prison jumpsuit, was led in by the marshals through a side door.

  “Will counsel please state their appearance for the record,” the clerk said.

  The prosecution spoke first. “Good morning, your honor. Rob Spencer, Ken Karas, and Dave Novak for the United States.”

  Dunham stood. “Good morning, your honor. Frank Dunham, the federal public defender, Jerry Zerkin, and Ed MacMahon—”

  Moussaoui raised his arm, one finger to the sky. “Ma’am,” he called. “No, I am sorry to note, they are not my lawyers.”

  A jolt raced through the courtroom. Apparently, this wouldn’t be a routine day after all.

  “Mr. Moussaoui,” Brinkema said, “Go up to the lectern, please.”

  Moussaoui stood and walked forward. “Thank you.”

  Brinkema cautioned him that the prosecutors could use anything he said in court against him. Moussaoui said that he understood.

  “Just speak up loudly, Mr. Moussaoui,” Brinkema said. “Go ahead.”

  There was a pause. All eyes were fixed on Moussaoui, and he seemed to be enjoying the attention.

  “In the name of Allah,” he began, “I, Zacarias Moussaoui, today the twenty-second of April 2002, after being prevented for a long time to mount an effective defense by overly restrictive and oppressive condition of confinement, take the control of my defense.”

  He was firing his lawyers, Moussaoui said, and would represent himself at trial. They worked for the government and were part of a conspiracy against him.

  “Greed, fame, and vanity is their motivation,” Moussaoui said in a calm but forceful voice. “Their game is deception. Their slogan is no scruple.”

  He began reciting portions of the Koran, then listed countries that he said should be under the control of Muslims.

  “I pray to Allah, the powerful, for the return of the Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan and the destruction of the United States of America,” he said. “America, I’m ready to fight in your Don King fight, even both hands tied behind the back in court.”

  He was just getting started. In a rambling fifty-minute monologue, he inveighed again against his lawyers, quoted more passages from the Koran, and explained his reasons for wanting to represent himself with the help of a Muslim lawyer.

  “All right,” Brinkema said when Moussaoui finished. “Let me first advise you that you have the absolute right under our law to be your own attorney. You already know that. But you do not have the right to pick and choose the lawyer you want appointed to you.”

  Before they went any further, she said, she wanted to hear from his attorneys.

  Moussaoui shook his head. “I do not want you to refer to them as my attorney,” he said. “They are not my attorney.”

  “I understand.”

  Moreover, Moussaoui said, he did not want them to reveal anything about his legal strategy.
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br />   “These men will not,” Brinkema said. “They’re experienced attorneys.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I believe that they’re experienced.” Moussaoui smirked. “They’re experienced in deception.”

  • • •

  Brinkema ruled that Moussaoui could represent himself, pending a psychiatric evaluation. But, she said, in the event that he proved unable to handle the job, Dunham and the other lawyers would remain in court as standby counsel.

  Outside the courtroom, reporters surrounded Dunham. Moussaoui’s position was understandable, he said. “If somebody thrusts a lawyer on you that you didn’t pick, it’s hard for you to trust them, especially in a case like this.”

  • • •

  In the White House, disbelief, once again, was engulfed by more disbelief. The Moussaoui case was supposed to follow a simple script: indictment, trial, conviction, sentence—the only question had been whether the prosecutors would succeed in persuading the court to impose a death sentence.

  But now this man was out there, babbling away in front of the national press corps, speaking in Arabic, quoting the Koran. Was he sending coded messages? Why didn’t the judge put a stop to this dangerous charade?

  The Moussaoui case, administration lawyers fretted, was turning into a circus. And the first day of the trial hadn’t even been held.

  • • •

  Shortly before 4:00 P.M. on May 3, Saudi Arabian Airlines flight SV667 banked northwest, beginning its final approach into Damascus International Airport. On board the plane, Abdullah Almalki glanced out of a window at the lush greenery below of the Ghouta, a belt of farmland on the outskirts of Damascus that Syrians revered as near paradise. The area had special meaning to Almalki; his family owned land there, and he affectionately remembered playing with his brothers as a child amid its fruit trees and orchards.

  He had not seen Syria since he moved to Canada as a teenager fifteen years before and was returning now after hearing some bad news. A few days earlier, he had received word that his grandmother had fallen ill and that several members of the family, including Almalki’s parents, had flown to Damascus to be at her bedside. He had promised to join them as soon as he could.

  As he watched his homeland rush by beneath the plane, Almalki could not have known that a noose was tightening. Canadian officials had been investigating him on suspicion of terrorist activities. Records from their inquiry had been sent to the CIA, which in turn passed them to Syrian intelligence. Since then, the Syrians had tortured Ahmad El-Maati until he confessed to having met Almalki and Maher Arar at an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan. The allegation was false, but given in desperation. El-Maati had buckled to stop the torture.

  Now, in the airport below, Syrian intelligence officials waited. Shortly before, the Americans had informed them that Almalki was on his way to Damascus. They were ready to pounce on him as soon as he arrived.

  • • •

  Crowds of well-dressed travelers packed every square foot of the terminal at the Damascus International Airport. The crush of people was so large that some of them had to hold their luggage on their heads.

  As Almalki made his way off the plane and waded inside, he saw a well-dressed woman holding a sign with his name on it. He approached her and introduced himself.

  “Okay,” the woman said. “I’m here to take you to your mother.”

  She escorted Almalki through the run-down terminal, leading him to the VIP lounge. His mother was there, along with a cousin he had never met before. After hugs and introductions, Almalki took a sip of his mother’s lemonade while waiting for someone to bring him a glass of his own.

  Immigration officials arrived at the lounge doorway. By policy, none of them were allowed into the room; instead they stood at the entry, and asked the staff to summon Almalki over so that they could speak with him.

  Almalki thought nothing of the request and headed to the door. They had some questions for him, one of the officials said, adding that they needed to make sure he was allowed in the VIP room.

  The questions were standard fare for Syria. What’s your name? What’s your date of birth? What’s your father’s full name? What’s your grandfather’s name? Probably, Almalki figured, they just wanted to make sure he was who he claimed to be.

  The questioning ended. “Please come with us,” one of the officials said.

  Almalki told his mother he would be right back. Some immigration issue needed to be cleared up, that was all. His cousin said he would accompany him. The two men walked out of the lounge, with Almalki leaving his bag and laptop behind. No need to bring them along, he thought, since he would be back in a few minutes.

  He never returned.

  • • •

  The immigration officials escorted the two to a security office at the airport. Almalki felt certain that he knew what this was about. All Syrian men are obligated to serve time in the military, and Almalki never had. But that wouldn’t be a problem; after his family had departed for Canada, his father had faithfully filed the necessary documents to keep Almalki’s deferral valid.

  The group arrived in an office, where a security official was sitting behind a desk. “I need your Syrian identification card,” he said.

  “I don’t have one,” Almalki replied. “Does this have anything to do with my military service? I’ve been in Canada for fifteen years and have been filing for a deferral every five years.”

  “No,” the official replied. “This has nothing to do with military service.”

  Almalki’s cousin grew angry. “What is going on?” he demanded.

  One of the officials told him to leave. He hesitated, then walked out of the room.

  The man behind the desk told Almalki that his name had come up on a computer search as someone who was wanted, although the security officials didn’t know why. One of them brought out a book and started flipping the pages. He found Almalki’s name.

  “Oh, sir, this is recent,” he said. “It’s a report received from the embassy on April twenty-second.”

  Embassy? What embassy? Maybe it had something to do with the Pakistanis, since his biggest customer was headquartered there.

  Before Almalki could ask more questions, the official stood up from his desk and led him into another room. There, two other men bombarded him with questions about his family and the reasons for his long absence from Syria.

  One of the officials looked at the other. “He is wanted for Branch 235,” he said.

  “Branch 235?” Almalki asked. “What’s that?”

  “Far’ Falastin.” The Palestine Branch.

  Almalki didn’t know what that was, but one of the officials assured him that the visit there wouldn’t take long. They brought him outside, where a minibus was waiting. As he rode through Damascus, Almalki chatted with his escorts, who seemed friendly enough.

  After thirty minutes, the driver pulled up to a gate at a large compound. Almalki stepped off the bus and was shepherded through. He looked around the compound and saw men carrying machine guns. No one explained what was happening as they led Almalki into an old, two-story building. Inside, he saw a blindfolded man. He started to worry; this was a bad place to be.

  All of this was a mistake, he thought, and he could straighten it out if he could just speak to someone. He had yet to realize that he was in a prison. Far’ Falastin was the most notorious torture site in all of Syria.

  • • •

  Almalki was blindfolded and moved to another room, where he was left alone for a short time. Suddenly he heard the noise of people coming through the door. A man approached him.

  “You are in Syria, not in Canada,” the man said. “You have to speak. You don’t get a lawyer.”

  Almalki listened, his fear rising.

  “Which treatment would you like?” the man asked. “The friendly one or the other one?”

  Not a difficult question. “I choose what you would choose,” Almalki said.

  “Bring him a chair!” the man barked at someon
e else in the room.

  The chair arrived and was placed next to Almalki.

  “Sit,” the man said. “Give me ten, fifteen minutes. I’ll clear up any misunderstandings.”

  Almalki heard paper rustling. His inquisitor apparently had some report in his hands.

  “Why are the Americans, the Canadians, the British, the whole world so interested in you?” the man asked.

  Almalki opened his mouth but was cut off by the next question.

  “Do you know Ibrahym Adam?”

  The Canadians. This was the exact question he had been asked months before by a Canadian intelligence agent, the one who had lied to him about being unable to find Adam. And now the Syrians were asking about him. Somehow, Canada’s information had been delivered to the Syrian government. But why?

  “I know Ibrahym,” Almalki responded. “I was asked about him in Canada. I think that the investigator was interested in him because he is a Muslim and a pilot.”

  “Who is Ahmad El-Maati?”

  El-Maati. The man with the map. But Almalki didn’t recognize the name. He knew him as Ahmad Badr; like many Egyptians, El-Maati used his father’s name, Badr, as a sign of respect. Almalki had no reason to be aware of that. He had barely ever spoken to El-Maati.

  “I don’t know who that is,” Almalki said.

  A third question, another name. Again, Almalki had never heard it before.

  There was a moment of silence, as if a storm was about to arrive. “You must prefer the nonfriendly treatment!” the man yelled.

  He slapped Almalki hard in the face.

  Almalki’s thoughts raced. In barely an hour, his world had turned upside down. His university degrees, his business contacts—none of that mattered here. He had entered into a nightmare.

  “You know Ahmad El-Maati!” the man barked.

  “I don’t know anyone by that name!”

  “You know him!”

  Desperate, Almalki asked for someone to describe this person. He was big and an Egyptian, the man responded. A few more details, and Almalki realized who it was.

  “Yes, now I know who you mean,” he said, his voice quivering. “But I know him by the name Ahmad Badr, not Ahmad El-Maati.”