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CNN Live At Daybreak

Investigators Followed Money Trail To Moussaoui

Aired December 12, 2001 - 05:15   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: Well, back in the United States, the first criminal indictment directly related to the September 11 attacks.

And as CNN's Susan Candiotti reports, prosecutors followed a money trail to Zacarias Moussaoui.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUSAN CANDIOTTI, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The attorney general calls the indictment "a chronicle of evil."

JOHN ASHCROFT, ATTORNEY GENERAL: For those who continue to doubt al Qaeda's role in the murders of September 11, our indictment offers 30 pages of chilling allegations of al Qaeda's campaign of terror.

CANDIOTTI: The first to be charged, a native of France, Zacarias Moussaoui. He holds a master's degree in international business, but investigators say his real business was terrorism.

ASHCROFT: Zacarias Moussaoui is alleged to have been an active participant in this conspiracy alongside the 19 terrorists who carried it out. Moussaoui is charged with undergoing the same training, receiving the same funding and pledging the same commitment to kill Americans.

CANDIOTTI: Moussaoui faces six conspiracy counts, including aircraft piracy, destroying an aircraft and the murder of U.S. employees. Four of the counts carry a possible death penalty. Osama bin Laden and one of his top lieutenants, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are among 23 unindicted co-conspirators. So are the 19 identified as the September 11 hijackers.

The indictment charges bin Laden with providing training and money for the terrorists, and says Moussaoui trained at one of the Afghan camps in April of 1998. For the first time, the charges trace in writing what CNN has reported, tens of thousands of dollars funneled from the Middle East to the hijackers, and, in the days before the hijacking, leftover money was wired back to Dubai.

The man who may have been behind Moussaoui, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, thought to have been the missing 20th hijacker had he not failed four times to enter the U.S. for flight training. Soon after, Moussaoui went to Pakistan, came back, and began flight training in Oklahoma. BRENDA KEENE, AIRMAN FLIGHT SCHOOL: He had never attained even a solo certificate at this point. So that would leave me to believe that he was not a very good pilot.

CANDIOTTI: In early August, the indictment says, Ramzi bin al- Shibh wired $14,000 to Moussaoui from Germany. Moussaoui apparently used that money to enroll in a second flight school in Minnesota. He was in training only three days before that flight school became suspicious.

He was picked up on immigration charges. But the FBI said Moussaoui did not cooperate and agents had no clue about his plans. Sources say it wasn't until after September 11 that crop dusting materials and flight training tapes found in his possession made things click.

(on camera): At the time Moussaoui was picked up in Minnesota, FBI agents wanted to tap into his laptop computer. But government attorneys decided there was not sufficient reason to justify that. We may never know if it would have raised enough red flags to prevent September 11.

Susan Candiotti, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: You saw Attorney General John Ashcroft holding up the 30 page indictment against Moussaoui. "Newsweek" investigative reporter Michael Isikoff studied the indictment and he tells CNN's Aaron Brown that the evidence against him is circumstantial at best.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL ISIKOFF, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, "NEWSWEEK": There are a number of other suspicious characters along the lines of Moussaoui. Moussaoui is clearly the most suspicious, and that's why they brought the indictment today. But it doesn't, as far as we understand, have any hard evidence against others connected to September 11. Otherwise they would have -- who are currently in custody. Otherwise they would have shown up in the indictment today.

AARON BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And on the subject of hard evidence on Moussaoui, what do we know about direct evidence as opposed to circumstantial evidence? Is there any?

ISIKOFF: Well, actually, this is an entirely circumstantial case. If you read the indictment, it is quite compelling circumstantially that Moussaoui was involved with the hijackers. And certainly the most devastating piece of evidence is that wire transfer from bin al-Shibh, who was Mohammed Atta's roommate, who had wired money to other of the hijackers, who was clearly involved in the whole planning for September 11.

He wires $14,000 to Moussaoui. Moussaoui then uses that money to put down cash for the flight training school in Minnesota. When you put that together with Moussaoui being placed in an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and the fact that he begins to enter the country as bin al-Shibh is being denied entry -- bin al-Shibh, remember, tries four times to enter the country. It is only when those visa applications are turned down that Moussaoui pops up and tries to enter the country.

You put that all together and it looks, circumstantially, a compelling case that Moussaoui was clearly involved with the hijackers in some way. Then you put that aside and look for the direct hard evidence and you don't actually see it. The actual overt acts that Moussaoui is charged with are things that can have entirely innocent explanations.

One of the overt acts, which is my favorite, is Moussaoui joins a gym in northern Oklahoma. It's put in there because this is about the same time Mohammed Atta and other of the hijackers are joining gyms. But of course, that's not exactly, that is something that doesn't necessarily have a sinister connotation.

Similarly, Moussaoui is charged with an overt act with buying a pair of knives. Again, you know, something that is open to an innocent explanation.

My understanding is that there are no direct -- there's no direct testimony against Moussaoui here. There's no direct evidence. There's nothing that implicates him. No witness is going to come forward and say yes, I was in on a meeting with Moussaoui when the September 11 was being planned.

Entirely circumstantial case.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CALLAWAY: And later this hour we hope to hear from U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft, who is in London, touring several European cities, in fact, meeting with officials on the investigation into September 11. And when he holds a news conference, we will bring that to you live from London.

Meanwhile, Aaron Brown's guest tonight will be defense attorney F. Lee Bailey. They'll be talking about the latest evidence in the Boston Strangler case. You can see that interview on NEWS NIGHT right here on CNN at 10:00 president.m. Eastern time.

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