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CounterPunch
September
25, 2002
Case of the
Missing Terrorist Solved...Not!
by JACOB LEVICH
Three weeks after Counterpunch first probed "The
Case of the Missing Terrorist" (16 July - August, 2002),
the Financial Times has followed up, adding new information to
the strange tale of alleged 9/11 conspirator Atif Ahmed. But
the
FT story may raise more questions than it answers.
Ahmed, you'll recall, was nabbed by Scotland
Yard detectives in November, 2001, after the FBI said it found
evidence suggesting he was a co-conspirator with accused "20th
hijacker" Zacarias Moussaoui.
In subsequent months, Moussaoui has repeatedly
and insistently identified Ahmed as a key player in the 9/11
conspiracy -- and as a British mole within Al Qaeda. Yet the
mainstream press declined to investigate, and the elusive Ahmed
vanished from the public record in what felt eerily like a press
blackout. During the nine months following his arrest, Counterpunch
was the only publication to point out that a pivotal figure in
an upcoming "Trial of the Century" had been, well,
mislaid.
Comes now the Financial Times with a
September 19 story reporting that Ahmed was quietly released,
without charge, a few days after his arrest. No longer an alleged
terror conspirator, Ahmed is now characterized by unnamed UK
security sources (presumably MI5) as merely a "minor figure
in the London Islamist underground."
The story also subtly revises an earlier
account of the nature of Ahmed's arrest. Whereas ABC News reported
in November that Ahmed was the target of a joint US-UK operation
stemming from the discovery of possibly incriminating material
on Mousaaoui's telephone records and hard drive, we are now told
that Ahmed was simply scooped up as part of UK anti-terror sweeps
that took place in the wake of 9/11.
FT seems to have made no attempt to contact
Ahmed and was satisfied with the sources' assurance that Moussaoui's
charges have no evidentiary basis.
Case closed? Yes, if you assume that
a) Moussaoui's a half-mad fantasist, and b) FT's spooky sources
are on the level.
But we can't help finding it a little
odd that one of Moussaoui's Islamist connections was back on
the streets within a few days of his arrest ("Keep your
nose clean, Atif, and don't hang around with any terrorist kingpins
in the future") -- especially at a time when hundreds of
terror suspects in both the US and UK were being preventively
detained for months, usually on the flimsiest of pretexts.
Moussaoui's trial begins in January,
and further questions about Atif's role in the 9/11 plot may
well be raised. But don't expect answers. If Ahmed were a British
agent, intelligence sources told FT, "MI5 would attempt
to restrict whatever evidence he might be prepared to give in
a court of law on the grounds of national security and possible
compromising of sources."
Translation: Don't even go there.
Jacob Levich
is a writer and editor living in Queens, N.Y. He can be reached
at: jlevich@earthlink.net
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September
21 / 22, 2002
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An Entire
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of Thieves
Tom Gorman
The Press & Sabra
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Susan Martinez
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The Ann Coulter Test
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The Bush Victory
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Peter Lee
Why Bush
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20 Questions
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Krystal Kyer
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Cheney's
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Cancerous
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