| Agent spent 4 weeks warning fbi { March 21 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/65706.htmhttp://www.nypost.com/news/worldnews/65706.htm
70 'ZAC' WARNINGS Post Wire Services
March 21, 2006 -- ALEXANDRIA, Va. - The FBI agent who arrested Zacarias Moussaoui in August 2001 testified yesterday he spent almost four weeks trying to warn U.S. officials about the radical Islamic student pilot - including a memo that mentioned him 70 times - but "criminal negligence" by superiors in Washington thwarted a chance to stop the 9/11 attacks. FBI agent Harry Samit of Minneapolis originally testified as a government witness, on March 9, but his daylong cross-examination by defense attorney Edward MacMahon was the strongest moment so far for the court-appointed lawyers defending Moussaoui.
The 37-year-old Frenchman of Moroccan descent is the only person charged in this country in connection with al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Although he denies being part of the plot, he pleaded guilty last April to conspiring with al Qaeda to fly planes into U.S. buildings and now is trying to avoid a death sentence.
MacMahon displayed a communication addressed to Samit and FBI headquarters agent Mike Maltbie from a bureau agent in Paris relaying word from French intelligence that Moussaoui was "very dangerous," had been indoctrinated in radical Islamic fundamentalism at London's Finnsbury Park mosque, was "completely devoted" to a variety of radical fundamentalism that Osama bin Laden espoused and had been to Afghanistan.
Based on what he already knew, Samit suspected that meant Moussaoui had been to training camps there, although the communication did not say that.
The communication arrived Aug. 30, 2001. The Sept. 11 Commission reported that British intelligence told U.S. officials on Sept 13, 2001, that Moussaoui had attended an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
"Had this information been available in late August 2001, the Moussaoui case would almost certainly have received intense, high-level attention," the commission concluded.
But Samit told MacMahon he couldn't persuade FBI headquarters or the Justice Department to take his fears seriously.
Under questioning from MacMahon, Samit acknowledged that he had told the Justice Department inspector general that "obstructionism, criminal negligence and careerism" on the part of FBI headquarters officials had prevented him from getting a warrant that would have revealed more about Moussaoui's associates. He said that opposition blocked "a serious opportunity to stop the 9/11 attacks."
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