THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH:

SERGEANT ALI-MOHAMMED
BY A. J. WEBERMAN

Where is Sergeant Ali-Mohammed? He is not in the Federal Inmate

Finder and it has been years since his conviction. Evidence suggests he
went into witness protection. The FBI had gotten a FISA tap on their snitch
Sergeant Ali-Mohamed and overheard him discussing a bombing that was
to take place at an Embassy in Africa. This was too much even for his FBI
and CIA handlers. Ali-Mohamed was subpoenaed to appear before a
Grand Jury on September 10, 1998. He was arrested for perjury and for
conspiring with Usama bin Laden to murder United States nationals as he
left the Grand Jury room. On September 11, 1998 Ali-Mohamed appeared
before U.S. Magistrate Andrew Peck and at the request of Ali-Mohamed
and the Government both the complaint and the presentment were sealed.
Between October 13, 1998 and April 19, 1999, the Government, with Ali-
Mohamed’s consent, was granted seven additional continuances in the
time by which Ali-Mohamed was to be indicted. The case caption was
changed to United States v. John Doe and all the papers were sealed. After
the New York Times complained about all this secrecy, the Government
submitted a sealed letter stating that the basis for Ali-Mohamed’s arrest
and the nature of the posture of the case thereafter, would compromise the
Government’s compelling interest in continuing the extremely sensitive
investigation. The Government refused to release the submissions in
redacted form and asked that the docket sheet itself be sealed and the
sealing order sealing the docket sheet be sealed. Judge Peck agreed. The
Times then wrote to Judge Shira A. Scheindlin, asking her to unseal the
submissions and proceedings. Judge Scheindlin unsealed the docket sheet
but kept everything else sealed. The U.S. Attorney, and the federal judges
kept the arrest secret for almost a year. Much of the case remains sealed.1

The reason for all this secrecy was to not embarrass the CIA or
implicate it in aiding Islamist in their rise to power. Ali-Mohamed pleaded
guilty to five federal counts of conspiracy, which included plotting to kill U.S.
citizens, destroy U.S. facilities, and murder U.S. soldiers in Somalia and
Saudi Arabia. U.S. District Judge Leonard B. Sand first said the agreement
guaranteed a minimum of 25 years in prison, but after an objection by
defense attorneys, the judge did not specify the length of the potential
prison term. His actual sentence, nor the facility he is housed in, has yet to
be revealed. The Mubarak Egyptian government requested the extradition
of Ali-Mohamed (who El-Ahram called Mustafa) after he was sentenced to
death in absentia by an Egyptian military tribunal in a case known as "the
returnees from Albania."2 Ali-Mohamed was debriefed prior to the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan.

At El-Sayyid Nosair’s World Trade Center - Second Kahane

assassination trial, where he was accused of being part of a conspiracy, his
defense was that he had received training materials from an Egyptian
person named “Ali-Mohamed” who
was known to him as an American
agent that was assigned to help and
train those who were assisting the
Afghani’s struggle against Russia.
When he received these military
manuals from Ali-Mohamed, Nosair
was under the impression that he (i.e.
El-Sayyid Nosair) was cooperating
with the American government and

1.Joseph Neff and John Sullivan “Al-Qaeda terrorist duped FBI, Army ”The News & Observer October 21,
2001.
http://www.diodon349.com/Attack_on_America/Attack_Stories/know_our_enemy_Ali_Mohamed.htm
2. http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/426/eg6.htm
following its policy through one of its agents. To prove his point, El-Sayyid
Nosair’s lawyers sent a subpoena to Ali-Mohamed to come and testify.
Despite the fact that the subpoena was sent to Ali-Mohamed, mysteriously,
Ali-Mohamed never came to testify. El-Sayyid Nosair’s cousin, Ibrahim A.
El-Gabrowny explained:

Upon arrival to the Manhattan Correctional Center on October

1999, I was put in 9 South Unit in a single cell right beside the
cell that was occupied by Ali-Mohamed, which he was there as
a suspect in the bombing case of the American Embassy in
Nairobi. During the period of being neighbors, I engaged in
several conversations with him and asked Ali-Muhamed about
the fact that he used to train people for the Afghan struggle
against Russia, and whether or not he ever received the
subpoena that Nosair’s lawyer sent to him and if he did receive
the subpoena, why did he not come to testify? Ali-Mohamed
told me that he used to work for the American army and it’s true
he trained people here and in Afghanistan to assist the struggle
against Russia and further added that he had briefly trained El-
Sayyid Nosair and provided him with military manuals and
instructions as part of the brief training. Ali-Mohamed further
added that regarding the subpoena that was sent to him by
Nosair’s lawyer, he actually received it and was prepared to
abide with the order and come to testify on Nosair’s behalf. But
before he could come to testify, Mr. Andy McCarthy, the
A.U.S.A. came accompanied with an FBI agent and paid him a
visit, Ali-Mohamed further added. During the visit Mr. McCarthy
told him that he i.e. Mr. McCarthy knew about the subpoena
that was sent by Nosair’s defense lawyer, then Mr. McCarthy
advised Ali-Mohamed to ignore the subpoena order and not go
to testify on Nosair’s behalf and that Mr. McCarthy will cover up
for him regarding that.

The soul and heart of the seditious conspiracy that was alleged
by the government against El-Sayyid Nosair and myself and the
rest of the defendants was the existence of the one over all
Jihad organization and the proofs of its terrorist activities. Ali-
Mohamed’s testimony was crucial to refute a major part of the
Government’s allegation, and that would substantially effect the
 case for Nosair, myself and the rest of the co-defendants.

Accordingly, if my claim is true, this will represent a severe

Brady violation, since the Government, through its
representative, Andy McCarthy acted maliciously to destroy
evidence and withhold exculpatory information from the
defense that if they were revealed they would substantially
effect the jury’s mind and change the whole outcome of the
trial.

Prior to his arrest in 1993, El-Gabrowny had been in touch with

Usama bin Laden.3 I gave this and other information to journalist Peter
Lance. Lance copied all that I had and after a while we decided to go on a
terrorist hunt in New Jersey. Waleed Abouel Nour was on the Rahman
Unindicted Co-Conspirator List. Waleed Nour and Egyptian Mohamed el-
Atriss were incorporators, registered agents and directors of Sphinx
Trading Company located at 2828 Kennedy Boulevard in Jersey City that
was founded in 1987. Sphinx Trading provided check cashing, mailbox
services and international wiring services for the Gama’a al-Islamiyya’s
Brooklyn / Jersey City cell. Nosair had a mailbox there. First World Trade
Center bomber Siddig Ali Siddig’s translation service was located at Box
161 28234 Kennedy Boulevard. El-Atriss claimed he met Nour while both
were cab drivers in Newark, New Jersey and not through an Islamist
network. Sphinx Trading was next door to the Afghan Refugee Services
Center, a front group for Gama’a al-Islamiyya’s Brooklyn / Jersey City cell
and the Al-Salaam Mosque, where Sheik Rahman preached. These
outposts of Islamism were both located at 2824 Kennedy Boulevard. Lance
and I entered Sphinx trading and aggressively questioned its employees.
They claimed Nour and Al-Atriss never came around the store and they
were unfamiliar with their backgrounds. We filled them in on the fact they
were a bunch of freaking terrorists. It was weird working with Lance as our
base of operations was the Museum Row apartment of Georgette
Mosbacher, the prominent Republican fundraiser and socialite. When
Lance published Triple Cross McCarthy got really angry:

3. USDC SDNY 98CR1023 Document #235 page 5

4. A typographical error as there is no maildrop at that address.
Mr. Lance:

I did not respond to your email because I believe you are an

irresponsible journalist. That, obviously, is why National
Geographic and Towers Productions parted ways with you this
summer. Had you not been involved in the project, I would
gladly have cooperated with it, as I did with their earlier, very
well done production. And as I routinely do even with
journalists who disagree vigorously with me ... as long as they
are professional. Save your bravado for someone who might be
impressed by it. You bore me. What I told the O'Reilly producer
was mild compared to what your atrocious book merits. As you
presumably know (although with you, one can't be sure), it
matters not how many pages you write nor how long your "time-
line" is. For example, in the narrow matter of what you say
about me, it is very simple. You falsely accuse me of
obstructing justice by advising a witness, Ali Mohammed, to
ignore a defense subpoena from Sayyid Nosair -- in a case in
which I have a lengthy record of providing the defense with
voluminous evidence unfavorable to the government, and in a
career in which I have a lengthy record of advising all witnesses
that it is mandatory to comply with court orders, regardless of
whether their evidence would help or hurt prosecutions.

You base this scurrilous allegation on the uncorroborated word

of Ibrahim Elgabrowny (Nosair's cousin), a convicted terrorist
with a long track record of making false claims. Of course, your
book fails to note not only Elgabrowny's checkered record but
also that the allegation at issue is one neither Elgabrowny
and his many counsel nor Nosair and his many counsel ever
dared make in court ... even though, had I done what you claim
I did, it would doubtless have called for a reversal of Nosair's
convictions.

Very truly yours,

Andrew C. McCarthy
 I knew one thing folks. When looked at the Appeal File this document,
which was a letter to the Judge, was gone. This is the most recent
development in this affair:

January 13, 2012 New York Times

Man Convicted in Terrorism Conspiracy Is Denied New Trial

By BENJAMIN WEISER

A federal judge in Manhattan has refused to grant a new trial to

a man convicted in 1995 of conspiring to blow up New York
landmarks and of the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane. The
defendant, El-Sayyid A. Nosair, had made various claims of
newly discovered evidence and of prosecutorial misconduct in
support of his request for a new trial. He was found guilty of
seditious conspiracy with other defendants, including a blind
sheik, Omar Abdel Rahman. Mr. Nosair has long claimed he
could not have been convicted of conspiring against the United
States because he was in fact being trained by the United
States government to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan.

But the judge, Richard J. Holwell of Federal District Court,

wrote that “mountains of evidence existed demonstrating that
Nosair did, in fact,” engage in the plot. In a decision made
public on Thursday, the judge said Mr. Nosair acknowledged in
his petition that he had discovered the new evidence more than
a year before raising the claims, making the petition untimely.
Mr. Nosair, who is being held in a federal prison in Terre Haute,
Ind., received a life sentence for the murder of Rabbi Kahane,
the founder of the Jewish Defense League, in 1990, and
additional years in prison on other counts. In 2009, while at the
so-called Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., he submitted
handwritten papers asking for a new trial. “Petitioner’s
conviction should be overturned and he be set free,” Mr. Nosair
wrote. Marjorie M. Smith, a lawyer who was appointed to
represent Mr. Nosair in his efforts to win a new trial, declined to
comment on Judge Holwell’s ruling, except to say that she
would consult with Mr. Nosair about whether to seek an appeal.
The United States attorney’s office in Manhattan had no
comment. At his 1995 trial, Mr. Nosair’s defense was that he
had not conspired against the United States but rather had
been part of a United States-supported covert operation to train
and arm mujahedeen to fight in Afghanistan.

In seeking a new trial, Mr. Nosair argued that prosecutors had

improperly prevented his trial lawyers from gaining access to a
witness, Ali A. Mohamed, who Mr. Nosair said would have
supported his claim. Mr. Mohamed, a former United States
Army sergeant, became a close aide to Osama bin Laden and
eventually was arrested and pleaded guilty to terrorism
conspiracy charges in 2000. Prosecutors have denied Mr.
Nosair’s claim that the government blocked access to Mr.
Mohamed and have said that had Mr. Mohamed testified
truthfully, he would only have “further inculpated Nosair in the
terrorist conspiracy.”