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CNN Live Today

Hunt for International Terrorists Proceeds

Aired May 14, 2002 - 11:01   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: First up this hour on CNN, a man you probably never heard of. His name: Enaam Arnaout. He ran a Chicago charity until the Fed shut it down last December. And now, if you listen to prosecutors, the man is a dangerous front man for Osama bin Laden. And they say they've got the pictures to prove it.

Our Chicago bureau chief, Jeff Flock, is on the story this morning and brings us the latest -- Jeff, good morning.

JEFF FLOCK, CNN CHICAGO BUREAU CHIEF: Indeed, good morning to you, Daryn.

A bond hearing is to be held for Mr. Arnaout -- Mr. Arnaout, it is pronounced differently -- tomorrow here in Chicago. The charge specifically is perjury. Specifically lying under oath about ties between Mr. Arnaout and his charity to Osama bin Laden, as well as funding Chechnyan rebels -- Muslim Chechnyan rebels.

Let's take a look at Mr. Arnaout now. We have some pictures -- controversial pictures -- that were released by the federal court yesterday. These photos obtained, according to the government, from a computer disk which was seized in Bosnia. They show Mr. Arnaout posing with a rifle -- with an automatic weapon -- as well as in a camp where the government says Osama bin Laden also visited. Though Arnaout and bin Laden are never pictured together.

There is also a shot of Mr. Arnaout with an Afghan warlord, a known Afghan warlord. A man the government says recently had a plot to overthrow the current Afghan government foiled. Now outside court yesterday, Arnaout's lawyers did not dispute that he was in the photos, but they did dispute their significance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW PIERS, ARNAOUT'S ATTORNEY: You know, it's not clear to me. Do I think that it's a ridiculous assertion that that's him? No. I mean it's either him or it's somebody who kind of looks like him in sort of grainy photographs. So, no, I don't dispute it.

What I will tell you about photographs of people in the Khyber Pass area in the late 1980s carrying guns is that it was much like posing with Mickey outside of Disneyland, when you take your kids down to Disneyland. There were literally booths with photographers and weapons, where people who went to that part of the world would pose with artillery.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FLOCK: Now lawyer Matt Piers says the photos should not have been released. He says they do not show or prove any wrongdoing. And he points out that when they were taken the U.S. government was, in fact, backing the mujahadeen fighters against the then Soviet back to Afghan government. He also says that releasing those photos will prejudice possible jurors in the case.

Now in addition to the photos, letters have also been released. And I think we may have those as well. According to the government, they are correspondence between Arnaout and bin Laden. They were allegedly obtained from a separate disk in Bosnia. They are in Arabic, with the government providing a translation. The names of Arnaout, though, and bin Laden, not on the letters, but rather code names for the two.

Now the perjury charge grows out of a civil lawsuit that was filed by Mr. Arnaout's charity. That is called Benevolence International, and it is based here in the Chicago suburbs. The charity filed that lawsuit after its assets were seized by the government back in March.

How important is this case here? Well the U.S. Attorney, Patrick Fitzgerald, for the northern district of Illinois, is prosecuting this case himself, which is somewhat unusual. And we have just received word from the courthouse -- the federal courthouse here in Chicago -- that that civil lawsuit this morning, a judge has now stayed that. And I'm getting a copy of that right now.

It appears that that lawsuit filed by Benevolence International against John Ashcroft and the federal government has now been stayed. What the lawyers for the charity wanted, and for Mr. Arnaout wanted, was for this lawsuit to go forward, because they say they need the assets seized by the government back in order to fight the criminal allegations against Mr. Arnaout.

So they feel like they're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. As for Arnaout himself, he remains in the lockup here in Chicago, the federal lockup. That's the Metropolitan Correctional Center, and that is where the government wants him to stay.

They will argue tomorrow against bond, saying that he is a risk of flight because he has passports from both the U.S. as well as Bosnia Herzegovina. And so they do not want him released. That bond hearing tomorrow in the federal court in Chicago.

That's the latest from here at this hour, Daryn. Of course, we will continue to watch this one closely.

KAGAN: Yes, Jeff, I just need you to clear up one thing for me -- a lot of information in that report.

FLOCK: Maybe so. KAGAN: So this perjury charge comes from -- yes, perhaps -- comes from a lawsuit that this man filed on behalf of his charity in reaction to an original government action. What's the original government action? When you go back to the very beginning, what does the government accuse this man's charity of doing?

FLOCK: In March, the government went in and seized the assets of Benevolence International, alleging that they were supporting terrorism around the world. And when that action took place, Arnaout and his charity went into federal court in a civil lawsuit and asked that all of those assets be returned. So in connection with that civil lawsuit, he made statements which the government claims were perjury, were untrue. And that is when they went ahead and arrested him. And now that is what's got him in to this current mess.

KAGAN: Got it -- Jeff Flock in Chicago, following the story for us. Appreciate it very much.

Well on the note of terrorism, there are two terrorism threats that are floating around out there. They might or might not have credibility, but they're very serious and will cause concern to a number of people.

So we have our David Ensor look at the threats and just how serious we should take them -- David, hello.

DAVID ENSOR, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Hello, Daryn.

Well, you know, U.S. officials are actually very skeptical about both of these possibilities. But in the post September 11th environment, any kind of serious threat, however weak the evidence of it may be, has to be looked into pretty seriously.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR (voice-over): U.S. officials say they did receive word from a foreign intelligence service that Islamic terrorists might be planning an attack on a U.S. nuclear power plant on or around July 4, the nation's birthday. But they stress they believe the information may not be reliable at all. It comes, officials say, from a foreign government that has been wrong in the past.

The first report on this in "The Washington Times" mentioned the Three Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant in Pennsylvania as a possible target. U.S. officials, however, tell CNN the intelligence information did not name any particular nuclear power plant. An official at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said the NRC "...is not aware of any credible threat against a specific plant."

Another example of threat information that could be misleading: Are Islamic extremists stowing away on ships entering the U.S.? Probably not, but officials told CNN's Kelly Arena that an internal government memo suggested as many as 25 Islamic extremists could have entered the U.S. since March. U.S. officials say there is no evidence whatsoever to back up that assertion. But when another news organization reported the existence of the memo, officials confirmed the memo does exist.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENSOR: The amount of intelligence information being gathered by intelligence and law enforcement agencies in this country has increased exponentially. The trouble is much of that information turns out later not to be credible, not to be correct. And the debate for U.S. policy makers and, frankly, also for news editors is how credible does a thing have to be before you put it out before the public -- Daryn.

KAGAN: It is an interesting debate, and I have to say, even as I heard about these things this morning, I was thinking just exactly that. If they're not credible, why are we exactly talking about them? But you know, David, what it brings to mind, a system that hasn't really seemed to take it whole. What happened to the system where they were supposed to put colors with how serious these things -- like a big traffic signal light? Where did that go?

ENSOR: Well the color system is in place. It was created by the Homeland Security Director, former Governor Ridge. It is the Attorney General, Mr. Ashcroft -- General Ashcroft -- who decides what color we should be at on a given day. But the United States has been at the same kind of middle level of danger, the same color -- if I'm not mistaken...

KAGAN: Yes.

ENSOR: ... it's yellow -- since the system was invented. So, so far, no change.

KAGAN: No change. Just some scary stuff out there for us to contemplate -- David Ensor in Washington, thank you so much.

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