Frank Viviano Writes Bin Laden operative faces trial in
Jordan
Suspect in terrorism born in Central Valley
- Amman, Jordan — A California-born alleged operative of Osama
bin Laden was formally charged with terrorist activities yesterday
in a trial that opened amid intense security and dissolved in
pandemonium.- The case against Raed Hijazi, 33, who once attended California
State University at Sacramento, is the first to contain detailed
evidence regarding the scope of al Qaeda, bin Laden’s international
network, since the Sept. 11 assault on the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon.- Hijazi is on trial for participating in a foiled attempt,
allegedly engineered by al Qaeda members, to blow up a major
Jordanian hotel and other tourist monuments on Jan. 1, 2000.- He was originally arrested in Syria and extradited to Jordan
last December, accused of planning bomb attacks on Christian,
Jewish and U.S. targets as part of a foiled “millennium”
plot by terrorists aimed at disrupting New Year celebrations
in Jordan.- Hijazi publicly denies any involvement, although press reports
earlier this year suggested he had been cooperating with investigators
on the case. In September 2000, a Jordanian court had sentenced
Hijazi to death in absentia for the alleged crimes.- In the court proceedings yesterday, Hijazi’s defense attorneys
said a key witness in the trial was Les Hickman, U.S. consul
general in Amman, who U.S. Embassy sources said had met earlier
this year with Hijazi in his jail cell.- When Hickman failed to appear, the proceedings were adjourned.
Hijazi, struggling wildly and shouting anti-Israeli slogans,
was chained and physically dragged from the courtroom by nine
armed police officers.- Before the trial opened, Hijazi briefly spoke with reporters
from inside a spare black-iron cage used for defendants in high-security
cases. He denied any involvement in the attempted bombings, and
showed the press gallery deep scars on his legs — the results,
he contended, of torture at the hands of the Jordanian military.
Jordanian officials have denied previous charges by Hijazi that
he was being tortured.- Wearing the white skull cap of a devout Muslim, Hijazi spoke
Arabic throughout the conversation, and nervously stroked his
chest-length untrimmed beard. He accused magistrates of “only
bringing up al Qaeda in this case as a way to get money from
the Americans in their fight against terrorism.”- Hijazi was born in the Sacramento area and grew up mostly
in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He took business courses at Cal State
Sacramento in the late 1980s and, according to the New York Times,
joined a group in Sacramento called the Islamic Assistance Organization.- Jordanian investigators, cited by the Times, claimed the
organization had helped to facilitate Hijazi’s move to Islamic
training camps in Afghanistan, where, according to Western and
Middle East press reports, he was trained by bin Laden operatives
in the use of bombs and explosives. According to Jordanian officials,
Hijazi and the other plotters had planned to blow up the 400-room
Radisson Hotel in downtown Amman, Christian holy sites in Jordan
and two border crossings into Israel.- “If you want to understand the modern face of global
Islamic terrorism and how it functions, look at Jordan,”
Richard A. Clarke, a White House counterterrorism official, told
the New York Times last January. “The Jordan plot is the
template.”- Yesterday, Jordanian army troops ringed the National Security
Court in suburban Amman for hours before proceedings began. Outside
the courthouse, chief defense attorney Taisir Diab claimed that
Hijazi had been given a list of the millennium bomb indictments
after agents of the Syrian secret service handed him over to
Jordanian authorities. “They said, ‘Sign this, or we’ll
kill you, and nobody will even know you’ve died,’ ” Diab
said.- A U.S. Embassy source would not comment on rumors that Hijazi
disclosed vital information on al Qaeda and bin Laden in the
meeting with Hickman. Press reports earlier this year indicated
Hijazi had described his involvement with bin Laden to investigators.
However, it is standard practice for U.S. diplomats abroad to
offer assistance to U.S. citizens in legal difficulties, the
source noted, adding that no official request for Hickman’s court
testimony had been presented to the embassy.
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