FBI Gives Terror Tip 2nd Look

FBI Gives Terror Tip 2nd Look

by Doris Bloodsworth
The Orlando Sentinel
October 30, 2002

A Central Florida man who last year was shunned by FBI agents when he tried to warn them about impending terrorist attacks has been interviewed as a material witness in both the attacks of Sept. 11 and in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.

Federal authorities close to the Sept. 11 investigation confirm that Walid Arkeh, 35, of Altamonte Springs, had knowledge during the summer of 2001 that terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden was planning a spectacular attack on America that involved the World Trade Center in New York and government buildings in Washington, D.C.

Arkeh, now serving the final days of a 30-month sentence for dealing in stolen property and slapping his child, initially was deemed "not credible" by FBI agents in Central Florida when he told them in August 2001 that an attack was imminent. Arkeh said he had learned a vague outline of the attack plan while serving time the previous year in London's Brixton Prison, where associates of bin Laden were also imprisoned and had befriended him because of his Muslim faith.

But after the Sept. 11 attacks -- and after Arkeh told his story to the Orlando Sentinel -- he was moved from the Seminole County Jail to Florida's prison system and then into federal custody. He wound up last May in New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center, just blocks away from ground zero, where federal prosecutors are investigating the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jim Margolin, FBI spokesman for the Southern District of New York, said he could not comment on what Arkeh told investigators in New York between May and August because of the open investigations into the embassy bombings and the Sept. 11 attacks.

A spokeswoman for the FBI in Tampa, which oversees the Orlando agents who had questioned Arkeh's credibility, said Tuesday that the office has "no current interest in Mr. Arkeh."

In New York, Arkeh said, he met twice with FBI agents and federal prosecutors, at first talking about what the bin Laden associates had said about the embassy bombings. After extensive questioning on the 1998 incidents, Arkeh said, he asked whether the agents were going to ask him about Sept. 11.

And though he stressed that he didn't know specific details about the date of the planned attacks, or that airplanes would be used, he said he told his questioners that he had heard predictions of the location of the attacks.

". . . A lot of United States government buildings were mentioned, airports, federal buildings" in Washington, he said during a recent interview at a North Florida prison, to which he was transferred in August.

"The trade center was mentioned to me. When it got bombed and nothing happened to it. . . . One of the guys said, 'In '93 [when Muslim terrorists detonated a truck bomb at the trade center], it wasn't successful. But you can bet on it: It will now.' "

Arkeh's odyssey from Altamonte Springs to London and finally to New York City provides a rare glimpse into the al-Qaeda network. And it also raises questions -- similar to those involving warnings of possible terrorist use of airplanes that had been generated by FBI offices in Phoenix and Minneapolis -- of how the FBI handled information about al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks.

Not taken seriously

No authorities would say how Arkeh came to the attention of the New York federal prosecutors overseeing terrorism investigations linked to al-Qaeda, though Tampa FBI officials said their office had been in touch with their New York counterparts. What is clear is that his experience there was vastly different from the way he was treated in Florida. Both before and after Sept. 11, Arkeh said, his Florida interrogators -- with the exception of one female agent, who seemed sympathetic -- were cold, skeptical and threatening. Indeed, in subsequent conversations with the Sentinel, FBI agents said they viewed Arkeh as just another low-level criminal trying to sell them information in hopes of winning his freedom.

Arkeh acknowledged that he didn't tell the agents details -- or the targets -- of the plot, but he insisted the men he knew in prison were determined terrorists.

"I was told by them -- there are many, many ways that I heard -- there is something very big is going to happen in the United States and in New York. And after it will be over with, it's going to be a wake-up call for the United States," Arkeh said he told the agents.

"I said, 'You guys go and check.' "

But Bill Hajeski, the FBI's then-supervisor of special agents in Orlando who has since retired, said earlier this year that although his office confirmed the Brixton Prison associations, he and his agents didn't believe Arkeh.

"We do not put any credibility into what he said," Hajeski said when questioned by the Sentinel before a Jan. 6 story on Arkeh. "And when we checked into his background, we found he wasn't credible."

Arkeh's troubled past

On the face of it, Arkeh wasn't a very impressive informant.

He was born in Amman, Jordan, but grew up in Lebanon and the United Arab Emirates before coming to the United States in 1987 to live with his brother, an engineering student in Milwaukee. The next year, he married, and the couple had a daughter in 1991. They separated a few months later, and Arkeh moved to Seminole County to live with his mother and brothers.

There, by his own admission, he drank too much, worked at menial jobs and had a series of minor run-ins with the law. In 1999, he was convicted of trying to pawn a stolen ring and slapping his 8-year-old daughter. Fearing deportation, he fled to England.

But he was picked up in Manchester on the Seminole County warrant and was sent in September 2000 to Brixton Prison in London, where he reconnected with his Muslim faith and fell in with the prison's Muslim community. He became close to three men he learned were indicted co-conspirators -- along with Osama bin Laden -- in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed more than 200 people and injured 4,000.

U.S. prosecutors charged that the three men ran a London storefront that served as a cover for al-Qaeda operations and acted as a conduit for communications between bin Laden and his network.

Arkeh said he became good friends with the three -- Saudi-born Khalid al-Fawwaz and Adel Abdel Bary and Ibrahim Eidarous, both from Egypt -- during his 10-month stay at Brixton. Al-Fawwaz even gave him a personal copy of the Quran.

Arkeh said the three told him of al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, al-Fawwaz's friendship with bin Laden -- and upcoming attacks in New York City that would involve multiple targets, including the World Trade Center.

And when he was extradited to the Seminole County Jail in July 2001, Arkeh immediately began trying to use the content of those conversations to get out of jail -- and get the charges against him dropped.

'Is that all you have?'

He used a fellow inmate and former bail bondsman to reach out to the FBI. But when two agents showed up at the jail on Aug. 21, 2001, they weren't impressed by Arkeh's warning that he knew "something big" was going to happen in New York City very soon.

One of the agents, hand in his pocket and jingling his change, was openly derisive, Arkeh said. "Is that all you have? That's old news," the agent said, according to Arkeh's account of the meeting to a Sentinel reporter late last year.

Arkeh was interviewed a second time on Sept. 11, hours after planes struck the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. He said he continued to assert the seriousness of the threat posed by al-Qaeda.

"They talked perfectly about some things. They have been all over the world. They had resources. They understand this country and how it works. They have people inside this country. These people that go to college and everything that were just waiting for the go-ahead. And it's going to continue on. That's what they live for.

"So those things I tried to express to the FBI," he said.

But the FBI wasn't buying it. According to a news release written after an article about Arkeh appeared in the Sentinel on Jan. 6:

"In fact, this individual was interviewed on four occasions; the information vetted to FBI New York, the Acting Special Agent in Charge of the Tampa Division and the United States Attorney for the Middle District of Florida. All agreed the information provided by this individual was vague and unsubstantiated."

Lawrence Albert Jr., assistant special agent in charge of the Tampa office who issued that news release, declined to comment Tuesday. Mike Ward, head of the Orlando FBI office, did not return phone calls.

Sara Oates, a spokeswoman for the Tampa and Orlando FBI offices, said the Tampa office had been in contact with their New York counterparts but would not elaborate.

"The FBI Orlando interviewed Mr. Arkeh on several occasions," she said. "We followed up the information he provided, and Mr. Arkeh did not provide information that had any bearing on the FBI preventing September 11. FBI Tampa has no current interest in Mr. Arkeh."

Eye-opening interview

In New York, Arkeh described his treatment by FBI agents and federal prosecutors as "very, very professional."

"I saw two clean-cut men in suits. I looked at their faces, and they welcomed me," he said. "They were very kind and respectful. They smiled and said, 'How are you doing, Mr. Arkeh?' "

One of the agents mentioned the name of a London lawyer used by one of the Brixton prisoners, signaling to Arkeh these agents understood the significance of the indicted trio.

When he asked for an attorney, Arkeh said the prosecutor immediately stopped the interview and got a federal judge to appoint one. New York attorney Labe Richman stressed that his client was never the subject of any potential prosecution but was in New York providing credible information about terrorism.

On May 21, two FBI agents and prosecutor Leslie Brown interviewed Arkeh, with Richman present. Most of the questions, Arkeh said, centered on the background of the three Brixton prisoners and the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa.

The next day, Richman couldn't accompany him, so Arkeh went alone. After more questions, he said he called a time-out because he was curious why no one had asked him about Sept. 11, which he assumed was the main reason he had been brought to New York.

"I was brought here for what reason?" he said. "I was in jail in Florida, and I called the federals to come so I could tell them about September 11."

Arkeh said everyone in the room looked stunned. One agent took off his glasses, put them on the conference table and then said, "What do you mean, 'September 11'?"

Arkeh explained: "I'm the one who called the FBI and told them that there was going to be an attack on the United States and that it would be on New York City. And I was told by the Taliban on that. You haven't asked me one question about it."

"Let me tell you something," Arkeh recalled the agent saying. "If you know what happened in New York, we are all in deep s---. We are in deep trouble."

Then the agents and prosecutor took a break, Arkeh said. When they returned "they got really serious."

"They said, 'Talk to us. Tell us what happened,' " Arkeh said. "They were listening to every word. I said, 'This is not a game. I'm not here to waste your time.' "

Arkeh said it was clear the agents had checked out what he had said the day before. He said when he began talking about the events leading up to Sept. 11, they let him talk, asked few questions -- and took lots of notes.

After the May interviews, Arkeh didn't hear from the federal authorities until Aug. 6. Arkeh and lawyer Richman said the U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI officials thanked him for his help.

"The information he gave them on the London prison and documents he had seen was credible," Richman said. "They thought he was a credible witness and helpful to their investigation. They thanked him and said, 'Let us know where you are in the future, so we can know where to get you if we need you.' "

Uncertainty lies ahead

For the next month, Arkeh won't be hard to find.

Back in his North Florida prison cell, he worries about what will happen next. He has tried to keep a low profile. He has no visitors, and his family has withdrawn contact, fearing for their own safety.

Arkeh has mixed feelings about the events of the past two years. He said reconnecting to his Muslim faith while at Brixton Prison inadvertently led him into the paths of the three alleged al-Qaeda members but also has given him the peace and courage to do the right thing.

He felt the burden and comfort most vividly in April when he looked out the van window in New York as he rode from the airport to the federal prison just blocks from ground zero.

"Where the two towers used to be, there's a big, huge gap," he said. "It was a great shock, and at the same time I was real scared. I prayed the whole time: 'Please help me.' "

Arkeh said he was torn between trying to help the U.S. government and the sympathy he felt for the victims of Sept. 11, and knowing that he was betraying fellow Muslims who had befriended him at Brixton. He said the imam who led services at the New York prison reassured him he was doing the right thing.

"I wondered if I would be punished for betraying my Muslim brothers," he said. "The imam said what they did was wrong." Arkeh said he would have to rely on his faith more than ever when he leaves state prison next month. He is scheduled to be picked up for deportation by immigration officials, unless a federal judge grants him asylum or delays his departure.

If Arkeh is deported, he will be sent to Jordan, where he says he has not lived since he was a young child and knows no one. He would like to stay in the United States and repair his relationship with his family, especially his daughter. "I never took my life seriously before," he said.

His best hope may be U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft's Responsible Cooperators Program, a post-Sept. 11 promise to foreign nationals living here that the government would offer immigration relief to those who provide "information which is reliable information and useful to us in preventing terrorism and apprehending those who are involved in terrorist activities."

His attorney, Richman, said Arkeh should qualify under the program. "He gave useful information and tried to help," Richman said. "They should defer his deportation indefinitely."

Richman has written a letter affirming that Arkeh gave credible, helpful information about terrorism to the U.S. Attorney's Office and FBI agents in New York, though he has declined to represent Arkeh before an immigration judge, saying he should obtain an attorney in Florida.

But Arkeh worries that Richman's letter won't be enough: "I've had people calling me a liar, calling me not credible, questioning me every way they have. They always provide other people with full protection."

Arkeh, who remains married to an American citizen, hopes his story will prove his loyalty to the country where he has lived for 15 years.

"The only reason I am doing this," he recalled telling Assistant U.S. Attorney Leslie Brown and FBI investigators in New York, "is I felt it was the right thing to do, to speak out and tell the truth."

Doris Bloodsworth can be reached

at dbloodsworth@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5446.

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