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by John Pacenti
The Palm Beach Post,
October 17, 2002
Randy Glass, the former Boca Raton con man who rubbed elbows with
terrorists as a federal informant, testified Wednesday before
congressional investigators looking into the terrorist attacks last
year. What Glass has to say centers on his role in the probe that
resulted in the West Palm Beach arrests of two men as arms brokers
trying to finalize a deal to sell stinger antiaircraft missiles, nuclear
components and other high-tech weaponry to terrorists linked in court
documents to Osama Bin Laden. The special joint inquiry committee
created by the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the
events of Sept. 11 also is looking into intelligence communication
breakdowns.
In August 2001, just
before Glass started to serve a seven-month sentence for a $6 million
jewelry scam, he said he reached out to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep.
Robert Wexler. He said he told staffers for both lawmakers that a
Pakistani operative working for the Taliban known as R.G. Abbas made
three references to imminent plans to attack the World Trade Center
during the probe, which ended in June 2001. At one meeting at New York's
Tribeca Grill caught on tape, Abbas pointed to the World Trade Center
and said, "Those towers are coming down," Glass said. Glass also now
says the State Department, in an effort to maintain good diplomatic
relations with Pakistan, pulled the plug on the South Florida terrorist
probe, believing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf could control the
militant terrorist faction of his government.
Glass spent 3-1/2
hours under oath Wednesday. The staffers have spoken to about 500 people
with information, said Paul Anderson, spokesman for Graham, the Florida
Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee. "I told them I
have specific evidence, and I can document it," Glass said. Court
documents detail how Glass worked numerous cases as a confidential
informant, including the arms probe that nabbed Diaa Badr Mohsen and
Mohammed "Mike" Malik of New Jersey as they showed off weaponry at a
Palm Beach International Airport hangar. A federal prosecutor told a
judge that Glass had been in contact with agents of the Taliban, the
Afghan regime that protected bin Laden. Both Mohsen and Malik pleaded
guilty. Mohsen was sentenced to about 2-1/2 years in prison. Malik's
sentence remains sealed but a source says he received 30 months.
State Sen. Ron
Klein, D-Boca Raton, was the first to take Glass seriously when he sat
down with him shortly after Mohsen and Malik were arrested in June 2001.
The lawmaker said he is surprised it has taken so long for Washington to
listen to Glass. "Shame on us," Klein said. "Whether Randy Glass is
credible or not, he has some information that should be evaluated."
Klein said he doesn't recall any talk from Glass about the World Trade
Center but does recall specific national security information. He
forwarded Glass' information to Graham's office, and followed up on it
to make sure it was processed. Glass' reputation as a convicted con
artist didn't help and no federal agency would corroborate his story.
Graham
acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had
contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the
World Trade Center. "I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces
of information which emanated from the summer of 2001," the senator
said. Graham later said he was unaware of Glass' information until after
the terrorist attacks. Glass did speak to a Tallahassee staffer before
the attacks but the impression was that Glass wanted Graham to intercede
in his criminal case, Anderson said.
Eric Johnson,
Wexler's chief of staff, said Glass contacted the office by phone before
the terrorist attacks but there is no record of what happened to that
information. Since then, other information provided by Glass has been
passed on to the FBI. Glass angrily denies he contacted the lawmakers so
they could intercede in his criminal case. He said he wanted only to
relay information on plans for an attack in which the World Trade Center
had been mentioned. He does say he wanted his prison sentence postponed
so he could continue his work. When the attacks occurred, Glass was in
federal prison at Eglin Air Force Base. "When it happened I literally
fell to my knees and started to cry," Glass said. "The frustration level
that I had. Who could I tell?"
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