13 March 2001
Source: Digital file from the Court Reporters Office, Southern District of
New York; (212) 805-0300.
This is the transcript of Day 17 of the trial, 13 March 2001.
See other transcripts: http://cryptome.org/usa-v-ubl-dt.htm
2413
1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
2 ------------------------------x
3 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
4 v. S(7) 98 Cr. 1023
5 USAMA BIN LADEN, et al.,
6 Defendants.
7 ------------------------------x
8
New York, N.Y.
9 March 13, 2001
9:55 a.m.
10
11
12 Before:
13 HON. LEONARD B. SAND,
14 District Judge
15
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18
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20
21
22
23
24
25
2414
1 APPEARANCES
2 MARY JO WHITE
United States Attorney for the
3 Southern District of New York
BY: PATRICK FITZGERALD
4 KENNETH KARAS
PAUL BUTLER
5 Assistant United States Attorneys
6
ANTHONY L. RICCO
7 EDWARD D. WILFORD
CARL J. HERMAN
8 SANDRA A. BABCOCK
Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Sadeek Odeh
9
FREDRICK H. COHN
10 DAVID P. BAUGH
LAURA GASIOROWSKI
11 Attorneys for defendant Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali
12 DAVID STERN
DAVID RUHNKE
13 Attorneys for defendant Khalfan Khamis Mohamed
14
SAM A. SCHMIDT
15 JOSHUA DRATEL
KRISTIAN K. LARSEN
16 Attorneys for defendant Wadih El Hage
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2415
1 (Trial resumed)
2 (Jury not present)
3 THE COURT: The government has handed me a proposed
4 advice to the jury with respect to the timing of the trial. I
5 take it, Mr. Fitzgerald, that this suggested advice to the
6 jury is predicated on the signing of various stipulations.
7 MR. FITZGERALD: Yes, Judge.
8 THE COURT: Have those stipulations been signed?
9 MR. FITZGERALD: Some have, not all. Some are still
10 being reviewed or in process.
11 THE COURT: Why isn't the prudent thing for me to do
12 to wait, and when the court is advised that all of the
13 stipulations which materially affect the timing of the case
14 have been signed and have been introduced in evidence, then I
15 would give an instruction similar to this to the jury?
16 I think about the first week in the trial there was
17 some inquiry from one of the jurors as to whether there was
18 any change in the estimated duration. I have not had any
19 inquiry since. The worst thing is to raise expectations and
20 then they are defeated, so I certainly think we should let the
21 jury know as soon as possible, but I think the prudent thing
22 is to wait until the stipulations are in fact signed.
23 Anything else? The jury may be brought in and the
24 next witness -- yes.
25 MR. SCHMIDT: Your Honor, I had a discussion with Mr.
2416
1 Fitzgerald yesterday. Because of the stipulations and the
2 pace of the government's case, we are starting to outrun our
3 ability to discuss the stipulations with the government,
4 because they need to prepare all their witnesses and at the
5 end of the day they have the evening that they are doing work
6 and we don't have the time in the evening to sit down with
7 them and discuss some issues that we would like to resolve
8 that would help continue to shorten the trial. Because the
9 pace is moving so quickly, Mr. Fitzgerald and I thought that
10 if we could have --
11 THE COURT: How about the 21st?
12 MR. SCHMIDT: We were hoping to get an afternoon say
13 tomorrow to work on some stipulations that would be useful for
14 next week. That is why we are trying to sort out everything
15 so that next week runs smoother, but we really need a little
16 bit of time.
17 MR. FITZGERALD: The witnesses for next week possibly
18 come from Manchester, England, as well as California and
19 Tanzania. We have flown people in without knowing what has
20 been stipulated to, at one point having someone come from
21 Kenya and not needing to put them on. Part of the problem is
22 that I can't talk to Mr. Schmidt about witnesses that we don't
23 know if we will call. If we had some time Wednesday or
24 Thursday, I think we could save time. One of the things I was
25 going to suggest is that I realize there may be interregnum
2417
1 time between the government's case and the defense case but I
2 think taking one of those days and doing it now would benefit
3 both the government and the defense.
4 MR. SCHMIDT: I don't know about using one of those
5 days, but if we could have an afternoon to sit down and work
6 on some of the stipulations, I think it is actually a time
7 saver rather than a time spender.
8 THE COURT: When would you like to do that?
9 MR. SCHMIDT: I would propose tomorrow afternoon
10 would probably be a good time, to have enough time to deal
11 with next week's issues.
12 MR. FITZGERALD: Mr. Ricco has been talking to us
13 about having his client see Witu originals and then the
14 documents from Pakistan so that we don't have a delay on
15 whatever we offer on those matters. My suggestion would be
16 either tomorrow or Thursday. We expect to put on probably a
17 couple of dozen witnesses between today and tomorrow, but --
18 THE COURT: When do you expect to get to Tanzania?
19 MR. FITZGERALD: We expect to get substantially
20 through the Tanzania bombing in the next two days. Then the
21 big witness would be Monday, which would be the agent who took
22 the statements. But I think the Tanzania bombing and some of
23 the forensic recovery in the next two days.
24 MR. SCHMIDT: If the government prefers Thursday,
25 that would be fine.
2418
1 THE COURT: I would prefer Thursday. Why don't we
2 not sit Thursday afternoon. I think I said at the beginning,
3 I am aware of the fact that sometimes pushing too hard is
4 counterproductive.
5 In a letter covering the transmission of the
6 government's requests to charge, it was stated that the
7 government plans to submit something to the court with respect
8 to instructions to the jury with respect to admissions or
9 statements made by codefendants. We spent sometime on that
10 with respect to Al-'Owhali. Nothing was said to the jury with
11 respect to Odeh. A request was made with respect to the
12 testimony concerning Odeh's statements. The issue will come
13 up again with respect to K.K. Mohamed, and you anticipate that
14 will be when?
15 MR. FITZGERALD: My anticipation would be probably
16 Monday.
17 THE COURT: If the government wants to submit
18 anything on that, I would like to have that before the
19 weekend, by Friday.
20 MR. FITZGERALD: OK.
21 THE COURT: And obviously anything from the
22 defendants with respect to that issue should be submitted in
23 writing before the close of business on Friday.
24 Then I will tell the jury that we are not going to
25 sit Thursday afternoon, and I think I will say that is to save
2419
1 time. And I will defer on anything further with respect to
2 timing until I am advised that the stipulations have been
3 signed or they haven't been signed, and what impact their
4 nonsigning would have on the advice of the jury.
5 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, with the court's permission,
6 for the next witness I would like to do part of the
7 examination from over by the Elmo so we can put documents on
8 the overhead.
9 (Jury present)
10 THE COURT: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
11 JURORS: Good morning, your Honor.
12 THE COURT: We are not going to sit this Thursday
13 afternoon. We will sit Thursday morning but we will not sit
14 this Thursday afternoon. So we are not sitting this Thursday
15 afternoon. We are not sitting on the 21st, which is a
16 Wednesday. And on Thursday the 22nd we are going to start a
17 little later than usual.
18 The reason we are not sitting Thursday afternoon is
19 that, talking to the attorneys there are some matters that
20 they need time to work on, all of which are designed to save
21 time. I hope sometime in the near future to give you a better
22 estimate with respect to timing, and I am optimistic that the
23 earlier estimates you have been given will prove to be overly
24 cautious. But I don't want to make a more definite statement
25 until we have more information.
2420
1 So then, we will sit all day today, we sit all day
2 tomorrow. Thursday we do not sit in the afternoon. We sit in
3 the morning. We do not sit on the 21st. On Thursday the
4 22nd, we will start I think an hour later than originally
5 scheduled.
6 The government may call its next witness.
7 MR. BUTLER: The government calls Agent Michael
8 Anticev.
9 MICHAEL ANTICEV,
10 called as a witness by the government,
11 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
12 DIRECT EXAMINATION
13 BY MR. BUTLER:
14 Q Agent Anticev, how are you employed?
15 A I am employed with the FBI.
16 Q How long have you been employed with the FBI?
17 A Approximately 10 years.
18 Q What office are you assigned to?
19 A New York office.
20 Q Drawing your attention to August 1998, did there come a
21 time when you received an assignment to travel to Nairobi,
22 Kenya?
23 A That is correct, closer to the end of the month.
24 Q Drawing your attention specifically to September 3, 1998,
25 where were you working?
2421
1 A At the CID, which is the Criminal Investigative Division
2 of the Kenyan National Police.
3 Q Are you familiar with Special Agent Lisa Martin?
4 A Yes, I am.
5 Q Now Agent Foster?
6 A Yes, I am.
7 Q Did you speak with her that day?
8 A On September 3, yes.
9 Q As a result of that conversation, what did you do?
10 A I obtained a black briefcase from her.
11 Q What did the package look like that you received?
12 A Initially it was wrapped in a brown paper.
13 Q What did the briefcase look like?
14 A It was a black, normal business briefcase.
15 Q What did you do once you received the briefcase?
16 A I took the briefcase to another room, where I opened it,
17 initialed and dated all the documents. With another agent we
18 photographed everything, logged it, and then photocopied
19 everything.
20 MR. BUTLER: May I approach, your Honor?
21 THE COURT: Yes.
22 Q Agent Anticev, I place before you what has been admitted
23 into evidence as Government's Exhibit 900. Do you recognize
24 that?
25 A Yes, I do.
2422
1 Q How do you recognize it? First, what is it?
2 A It is the black briefcase.
3 Q The one you received from Agent Martin that day?
4 A Yes.
5 Q How do you recognize it as the black briefcase that you
6 received from her that day?
7 A I have my initials and it is dated here 9/3/98.
8 Q Once again, what did you do with the briefcase after you
9 opened it?
10 A After I opened it, we inventoried all the documents,
11 photocopied them, photographed them, and I initialed and dated
12 them.
13 Q I place before you what have been previously marked as
14 Government's Exhibits 901 to 929 for identification. Agent
15 Anticev, I just ask you to take one moment and look through
16 those documents and tell us whether you recognize those
17 documents? You can also tell us, if you do recognize them,
18 how you recognize them?
19 A I do recognize these documents. They have my initials,
20 are dated 9/3, and they are the documents that were inside
21 that briefcase.
22 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I offer Exhibits 901 to 929
23 at this time.
24 THE COURT: Yes.
25 MR. SCHMIDT: May I see the documents?
2423
1 THE COURT: Have you not seen them before? Yes, you
2 may look at them.
3 MR. SCHMIDT: We have not --
4 (Pause)
5 MR. SCHMIDT: Thank you.
6 THE COURT: Without objection, Exhibits 901 through
7 929 are received.
8 (Government's Exhibits 901 through 929 received in
9 evidence)
10 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, with the court's permission
11 I am going to continue the examination from the overhead.
12 THE COURT: Yes.
13 Q Agent Anticev, we are going to place some of these
14 documents on the screen. I just ask you to identify what they
15 are. First is Government's Exhibit 901.
16 A It appears to be a Yemen passport.
17 Q Can you read the name on the Yemen passport?
18 A It's a little blurry on the screen but Khalid Salim Saleh
19 Ben Rasheed.
20 Q Let's turn to page 6 of the passport. Do you see a stamp
21 on 6?
22 A Yes, a Pakistani visa.
23 Q To the right of the screen, do you see a stamp there?
24 A Yes, at the top I can see one that is in Arabic, and there
25 is another one next to it below, dated July 31, '98 -- if you
2424
1 can just turn it -- the other way -- from Karachi, from
2 Pakistan.
3 Q Agent Anticev, do you see what is on the screen now,
4 another stamp?
5 A Yes. On the top it is a Nairobi stamp dated August 2,
6 '98.
7 Q Let's turn to Government's Exhibit 910.
8 A It's an i.d. card in Arabic.
9 Q Let's go to Government's Exhibit 904.
10 A It looks like a health vaccination card from Pakistan,
11 with the name of Khalid Salim Saleh.
12 Q Turning to the middle of that document, can you make out a
13 stamp on that page?
14 A Yes. It appears to be July, but I can't read the date.
15 Maybe the 28th of '98.
16 Q There you go.
17 A Right, July 28, '98.
18 Q Could we turn to Government's Exhibit 913, please.
19 A That's an airplane ticket.
20 Q If we turn to the last page of that airline ticket, what
21 is the name of the passenger on that airline ticket?
22 A It appears to be Saleh Rasheed Salim.
23 Q Can you make out the first name there before Saleh, all
24 the way to the left?
25 A From the screen, no.
2425
1 Q Let's move down. Where did the passenger leave from?
2 A Left from Lahore to Karachi, on to Muscat, to Nairobi, to
3 Sanaa.
4 Q If we move it over a little, do you see a date in the
5 upper right-hand corner?
6 A Yes, July 28, '98.
7 Q Let's go to Government's Exhibit 906, please. What is
8 Government's Exhibit 906?
9 A It appears to be some type of -- it appears to be a
10 passport, but --
11 Q Let's take a look at the interior pages.
12 A Some form of i.d. that is in Arabic.
13 Q Let's go to Government's Exhibit 902.
14 A That's a passport from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It is
15 for Jihad, M period A period Ali.
16 Q Can we go to page 19. What is on the right side of page
17 19?
18 A On page 19 is an immigration stamp from Karachi dated June
19 19, '98.
20 Q If you look on the left side of the page, do you see
21 another stamp there?
22 A The triangular one?
23 Q How about the one that is in red?
24 A That's the exit one from Karachi.
25 Q What is the date again?
2426
1 A June 19, 1998.
2 Q If we turn to page 21.
3 A That appears to be a Kenyan visa and another stamp dated
4 June 19, 1998, for Kenya.
5 Q If we go to Government's Exhibit 908, please.
6 A That's another i.d. card in Arabic.
7 Q If you look on the back.
8 A It says private driver's license for the Kingdom of Saudi
9 Arabia.
10 Q If we go to Government's Exhibit 911, please.
11 A That's another i.d. card, also in Arabic.
12 Q If you look on the bottom, do you see some English
13 lettering?
14 A Yes, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, identification card.
15 Q If we go to Government's Exhibit 912.
16 A That's a Kenyan Airways airline ticket.
17 Q If we go to the last page.
18 A That's for Mr. Jihad M period A period Ali.
19 Q What is the itinerary on that airline ticket?
20 A From Karachi to Nairobi to Karachi.
21 Q If you look up on the right-hand side of the screen, is
22 there a date that appears there?
23 A Yes, June 16, 1998.
24 Q Let's go to Government's Exhibit 903. What is
25 Government's Exhibit 903?
2427
1 A It's a passport, what appears to be from the Islamic
2 republic of Comoros.
3 Q What is the name on that passport?
4 A Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.
5 Q Looking at page 2 of the passport, there is a picture that
6 appears on the bottom left-hand corner, correct?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Let's go to Government's Exhibit 907.
9 A Those are blank Pakistani visa.
10 Q If we could go to Government's Exhibit 915.
11 A It appears to be an identification card, also in Arabic.
12 Q If we could turn that over. Is there some writing on the
13 back?
14 A Yes, in Arabic and in English. In English says Alwadi al
15 Mubarak Company, Ltd. and Gubaa Agriculture Project.
16 Q If we go to Government's Exhibit 916. What is
17 Government's Exhibit 916?
18 A It looks like a receipt from Lyndalian Airfreighters and
19 Forwarders.
20 Q Do you see a name on the receipt?
21 A Yes, Fazul Abdallah.
22 Q If we look, is there a date that appears there?
23 A It appears to be August 6, 1998.
24 Q If we could go to Government's Exhibit 918. What is
25 Government Exhibit 918?
2428
1 A A document referencing a visa for Ahmed Ahmed.
2 Q Agent Anticev, I am showing you what have been admitted
3 into evidence as Government's Exhibits 919 to 929. Have you
4 had a chance to review those items?
5 A Yes, I did.
6 Q What are they?
7 A These are all -- they are various airline tickets.
8 Q Were you able to review them yesterday?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Whose name are those airline tickets in?
11 A A lot of them belong to Fazul and family members.
12 Q To complete the identification of these documents, I show
13 you what has been admitted into evidence as Government's
14 Exhibit 905, if you could just identify that item.
15 A 905 is an international driving permit from Kenya, Uganda,
16 and Tanzania.
17 Q Does it have a name on it?
18 A For Mr. Fazul Abdullah Mohammed.
19 Q What is Government's Exhibit 909?
20 A 909 is an i.d. card that is in Arabic, both sides in
21 Arabic.
22 Q How about Government's Exhibit 914?
23 A 914 is a passport from the Islamic Republic of Comoros.
24 Q Is there a name on that passport?
25 A Yes, Halima Boudradine.
2429
1 Q Lastly, could you identify Government's Exhibit 917.
2 A 917 is written on Kenyan Airways letterhead and appears to
3 be a letter.
4 Q Agent Anticev, after you logged these documents, what did
5 you do with them?
6 A After I logged them, photographed them, initialed them,
7 dated them, I put them in the evidence room.
8 MR. BUTLER: No further questions, your Honor.
9 THE COURT: Any questions of this witness?
10 Thank you, Agent. You may step down.
11 THE WITNESS: Thank you.
12 (Witness excused)
13 MR. BUTLER: The government calls Agent Michelle
14 Carr.
15 MICHELLE MARIE CARR,
16 called as a witness by the government,
17 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
18 DIRECT EXAMINATION
19 BY MR. BUTLER:
20 Q Agent Carr, how are you employed?
21 A As a special agent with the FBI.
22 Q How long have you been with the FBI?
23 A Five and a half years.
24 Q What office are you assigned to?
25 A The Washington field office.
2430
1 Q How long have you been with the Washington field office?
2 A Approximately four years.
3 Q Are you a member of any particular team?
4 A The Evidence Response Team.
5 Q Were you one of the members of the Washington Evidence
6 Response Team that went to Nairobi, Kenya, in August 1998?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Approximately when did you arrive?
9 A The end of August.
10 Q To be clear, what was your last name in the end of August
11 1998?
12 A Knop.
13 Q Drawing your attention to noon on August 7, 1998, do you
14 recall where you were on that date?
15 A I am sorry.
16 Q Drawing your attention to, I am sorry, September 7, 1998,
17 do you recall where you were on that date?
18 A Yes, at approximately noon we were preparing for a search
19 of a vehicle.
20 Q What type of vehicle was that?
21 A I recall it was a Datsun pickup, white color.
22 MR. BAUGH: If we could ask the witness to use the
23 microphone.
24 Q If we could display what was previously admitted into
25 evidence as Government's Exhibit 960A. Do you recognize what
2431
1 is depicted in 960A?
2 A Yes.
3 Q What is that?
4 A That is the pickup we processed.
5 Q Where is that located in CID headquarters; do you recall?
6 A It was located within CID under a carport.
7 Q Generally, what did you do to search the truck that day?
8 A I assisted in taking swabbings of the truck, collecting
9 evidence from inside the truck, and processing it for
10 fingerprints.
11 Q Before commencing the search, did you do anything to
12 prepare for your search?
13 A Yes. Swabbings were the first thing we did, so to prepare
14 for that we put on Ty-Vec suits and gloves.
15 Q After you put on the Ty-Vec suits and gloves, what did you
16 do?
17 A We took control swabbings of the suit and gloves.
18 Q What did you do after that?
19 A Then we began taking the swabbings from the truck.
20 Q What parts of the truck did you swab?
21 A Areas in the bed of the truck as well as areas inside the
22 cab of the truck.
23 Q What did you do with those swabbings once you took them?
24 A Each individual swab was placed in a glass vial. A lid
25 was put on the vial and then the vial was put into a small
2432
1 Ziplock bag.
2 Q Did you initial those bags?
3 A The bags had our names on them, indicating that we
4 recovered that particular swabbing.
5 Q I am going to show you what have been previously marked as
6 Government's Exhibits 971, 973, 979, 981, 977, 969, and 975.
7 I will ask you if you recognize these items?
8 A Yes.
9 Q What are those items?
10 A These are the swabbings that I collected from the truck.
11 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I move those exhibits into
12 evidence at this time.
13 THE COURT: Received.
14 (Government's Exhibits 969, 971, 973, 975, 977, 979
15 and 981 received in evidence)
16 Q Just to be clear, what was done with those items of
17 evidence after you took the swabbings?
18 A They were placed in the glass vial, the glass vial was
19 placed in the plastic bag, we placed all the swabbings in a
20 box, sealed that, and then secured them in the evidence room
21 at the CID.
22 Q What did you do -- did you handle those swabbings again?
23 A Yes. The next day we unsealed the box that they were in
24 and individually sealed each vial and each bag with the
25 evidence tape.
2433
1 Q Did you also seize from papers from the truck that day?
2 A Yes.
3 Q Where did you seize the papers from?
4 A They were located in the ashtray in the cab of the truck.
5 Q Do you recall what those papers were?
6 A Some miscellaneous receipts.
7 Q What did you do with those papers?
8 A Also I put those in a Ziplock bag, sealed the bag, and
9 placed that in the evidence room.
10 Q I am going to approach with what has been marked as
11 Government's Exhibits 992A and B and ask if you recognize
12 that?
13 A Yes.
14 Q What is Government's Exhibit 992A and B?
15 A Receipts, a parking receipt and gas receipt.
16 Q Are those the items that you took from the truck that day?
17 A Yes.
18 Q How do you recognize them?
19 A My name is listed on the envelope as being the person who
20 collected those.
21 (Continued on next page)
22
23
24
25
2434
1 Q Do you recall taking those from the truck that day?
2 A Yes.
3 MR. BUTLER: I move Government Exhibit 929A and B
4 into evidence, your Honor.
5 MR. SCHMIDT: May I see those before they go into
6 evidence, please?
7 THE COURT: Yes.
8 (Pause)
9 MR. SCHMIDT: No objection.
10 THE COURT: 992A and B received.
11 (Government's Exhibits 992A and B received in
12 evidence)
13 MR. BUTLER: No further questions, your Honor.
14 THE COURT: Anything else for this witness?
15 Thank you, agent. You may step down. The government
16 may call its next witness.
17 MR. BUTLER: The government calls agent Susan
18 Mitchell, your Honor.
19 SUSAN MARIE MITCHELL,
20 called as a witness by the government,
21 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
22 DIRECT EXAMINATION
23 BY MR. BUTLER:
24 Q Agent Mitchell, how are you employed?
25 A I'm sorry?
2435
1 Q How are you employed, Agent Mitchell?
2 A I'm employed as a Special Agent with the FBI.
3 Q How long have you been with the FBI?
4 A For five years.
5 Q What office are you located in?
6 A The Washington field office.
7 Q Are you also a member of the evidence response team from
8 the Washington field office?
9 A I am.
10 Q Were you one of the members that was sent to Nairobi,
11 Kenya in August of 1998?
12 A Yes, I was.
13 Q Drawing your attention to noon on September 7, 1998, do
14 you recall where you were on that date?
15 A Yes, I was in CID headquarters.
16 Q What were you assigned to do at that time?
17 A We were assigned to search a white sports utility vehicle.
18 Q When you say a sports utility vehicle what?
19 A A small white truck.
20 Q And what was your role in that search that day?
21 A I was photographer and the seizing agent.
22 Q What does a seizing agent do?
23 A The seizing agent is required to collect the evidence as
24 it's recovered and then bring that evidence to a cleared
25 storage facility.
2436
1 Q Before conducting the search what preparations did you
2 take?
3 A Two agents were placed in Tyvek suits to protect it
4 against contamination against the search.
5 Q Did you do anything with respect to the Tyvek suits?
6 A I assisted the two agents in conducting control swabbings
7 of their suits, and I collected those control swabbings and
8 placed them in a glass container, marked them for evidence.
9 Q I approach with what has previously been marked as
10 Government Exhibits 962, 963, 964, 966, 967, 968 and 976 and
11 ask you if you recognize those items.
12 A Yes, I do.
13 Q What are they?
14 A They are the glass containers holding the controlled swabs
15 that we took that day from the truck.
16 Q How do you recognize them?
17 A I recognize them from the containers themselves and the
18 writing on the envelopes.
19 MR. BUTLER: Move for the admission of those exhibits
20 at this time, your Honor.
21 THE COURT: Yes, received.
22 (Government's Exhibits 962, 963, 964, 966, 967, 968
23 and 976 received in evidence)
24 Q Now, as photographer did you also take photographs of the
25 truck?
2437
1 A I did.
2 MR. BUTLER: If we could please display just for
3 identification purposes what's been previously marked as
4 Government Exhibit 960C.
5 Q Do you recognize what is depicted in Government Exhibit
6 960C?
7 A Yes, the bed of the truck we searched.
8 Q Is that a fair and accurate representation of the bed of
9 the truck?
10 A Yes, it is.
11 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I move Government Exhibit
12 9606C.
13 THE COURT: Received.
14 (Government's Exhibit 960C received in evidence)
15 Q Now, if we can display that.
16 Agent Mitchell, do you recognize something in the bed
17 of the truck?
18 A Yes, it's a brown burlap covering on the bed of the truck.
19 Q When you first encountered the truck was that rug in the
20 back of the truck?
21 A Yes, it was.
22 Q What did you do with respect to that rug?
23 A I seized the burlap covering and with the assistance of
24 another agent we cut it in half, marked the cut, placed two
25 halves into containers and sealed and marked those containers.
2438
1 Q I'm going to place before you what has been previously
2 marked as Government Exhibits 982 and 986 for identification.
3 I'll ask you whether you recognize these items.
4 A Yes, I do recognize them.
5 Q What is Government Exhibit 982?
6 A 982 is, this is the container with the brown burlap, the
7 half of the brown burlap covering.
8 Q How do you recognize Government Exhibit 982?
9 A I was able to review the covering inside here and I
10 recognize it from the container itself and the writing on the
11 container.
12 Q Did you also have an opportunity earlier to examine the
13 contents?
14 A Yes, I did previously I was able to review the items
15 inside.
16 Q And the other exhibit 986, what is 986?
17 A This is the knife blade that we used to cut the carpet in
18 half to place in the two containers.
19 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I move the admission of
20 Government Exhibits 982 and 986 at this time.
21 THE COURT: Received.
22 (Government's Exhibits 982 and 986 received in
23 evidence)
24 Q Now, did you also -- were certain items also removed from
25 the cab area of the truck?
2439
1 A Yes. After we finished the bed of the truck we moved to
2 the cab of the truck, and the two agents in Tyvek suits then
3 proceeded to do swabbings.
4 Q Do you recall in particular certain items that you removed
5 from the cab area of the truck?
6 A We removed a dashboard cover, carpet-type dashboard cover
7 and we also removed the floor mats.
8 MR. BUTLER: If we could display what has been
9 previously entered into evidence as Government Exhibit 960B.
10 Q Agent Mitchell, if you can just maybe point to the screen
11 and tell us where the items that you removed came from in the
12 cab?
13 A The dashboard cover is here, the red carpet dashboard
14 cover we removed that and the driver's side floor mat was
15 vinyl and we removed that as well.
16 Q I place before you what has been previously marked for
17 identification as Government Exhibits 983, 987 and 989. Do
18 you recognize those items?
19 A Yes, I do.
20 Q How do you recognize them?
21 A I had previously been able to review the contents in these
22 two containers, one being the vinyl floor mat and one being
23 the dashboard cover, and I also recognize them from the
24 containers themselves and the writing on the container.
25 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, I move those exhibits at
2440
1 this time.
2 THE COURT: 983, 987, 989 received.
3 (Government's Exhibits 983, 987 and 989 received in
4 evidence)
5 Q Now, lastly, did you seize any papers from the truck?
6 A Yes. After the swabbings were completed and I entered the
7 truck to do a search I did seize documents from the vehicle.
8 Q Do you recall what documents you seized from the vehicle?
9 A Yes. There were two insurance documents in the glove box
10 of the vehicle.
11 Q I put before you what has been previously marked as
12 Government Exhibit 991A and B for identification. Do you
13 recognize Government Exhibit 991A and B?
14 A Yes, I do. It's insurance certificate in the name of
15 Fahid Mohamed Ally.
16 Q How do you recognize it?
17 A I recognize it, I recognize the documents and I recognize
18 the writing on the envelope.
19 MR. BUTLER: I would move Government Exhibits 991A
20 and B at this time, your Honor.
21 THE COURT: Yes. Received.
22 (Government's Exhibits 991A and B received in
23 evidence)
24 Q Now, after you collected all of this evidence what did you
25 do with it?
2441
1 A As seizing agent I collected all the evidence and brought
2 it to the secure temporary evidence storage facility there in
3 CID headquarters.
4 MR. BUTLER: No further questions.
5 THE COURT: Anything?
6 MR. WILFORD: Yes, your Honor.
7 THE COURT: Yes, Mr. Wilford on behalf of the
8 defendant Odeh.
9 CROSS-EXAMINATION
10 BY MR. WILFORD:
11 Q Good morning, Agent Mitchell.
12 A Good morning.
13 Q How you doing?
14 A I'm doing well.
15 Q Good. Now, when you were in Kenya you just mentioned the
16 temporary secure storage facility. That was located inside
17 CID headquarters?
18 A Yes, it was.
19 Q And that was a room that was designated by the CID for the
20 use of the FBI and for evidence collection and storage?
21 A Correct.
22 Q Now, you had a key to that room, isn't that correct?
23 A I did.
24 Q Did anybody else have a key to that room?
25 A It was my understanding that the Special Agent in charge
2442
1 had a key as well as the CID representative.
2 Q Who was the Special Agent in charge?
3 A Sheila Horan.
4 Q And who was the CID representative who had a key?
5 A I was not provided that name.
6 Q Do you know his rank or her rank?
7 A No.
8 Q Did you ever meet the person?
9 A No, I did not.
10 Q Now, when you were provided the key you were provided a
11 key by Special Agent Horan, isn't that correct?
12 A I don't recall who I was provided the key by. It was a
13 member. It could have been a member of our ERT team who was
14 previously there. I don't recall.
15 Q Now, the CID also had access to that room, is that
16 correct?
17 A That's true.
18 Q And did they come and go out of that room?
19 A No, I never, I never encountered them coming in and out of
20 that room. They did have a representative did have a key, but
21 I never encountered them coming in and out of that room.
22 Q But you weren't at the room twenty-four hours though, is
23 that correct?
24 A No, I was not.
25 Q And it was located in CID headquarters, isn't that
2443
1 correct?
2 A We were in Kenya, yes.
3 Q There wasn't a guard or anything posted outside of the
4 door was there?
5 A No, it was a locked room but no guard.
6 Q Was there any type of log in and log out procedure in
7 effect at the temporary secure storage facility for evidence?
8 A Yes, there was.
9 Q Who maintained the log?
10 A The ERT team and it was myself as the leader maintained
11 that log.
12 Q So you personally maintained the log?
13 A Yes.
14 Q Nothing went in or went out without being signed and then
15 you knowing about?
16 A Correct.
17 MR. WILFORD: Thank you. Nothing further.
18 THE COURT: Thank you, agent. You may step down.
19 MR. BUTLER: I'm sorry. One question, your Honor.
20 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
21 BY MR. BUTLER:
22 Q As far as your maintaining the key your oversight of the
23 evidence room, when did that begin?
24 A Approximately August 27th. I arrived in country on August
25 27th.
2444
1 MR. BUTLER: No further questions, your Honor.
2 MR. WILFORD: Judge, just if I may.
3 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
4 BY MR. WILFORD:
5 Q Agent Mitchell, to your knowledge was the secure facility
6 set up before the 27th?
7 A Yes, it was as far as, it was set up when I arrived.
8 Q So someone else had the key before you got there?
9 A Yes.
10 MR. WILFORD: Thank you.
11 (Witness excused)
12 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the government calls Mitchell
13 Hollars.
14 MITCHELL L. HOLLARS,
15 called as a witness by the government,
16 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
17 DIRECT EXAMINATION
18 BY MR. KARAS:
19 Q Good morning, sir.
20 A Good morning.
21 Q If you could tell us what you do for a living?
22 A I'm employed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the
23 latent print unit.
24 Q For how long have you been with the Federal Bureau of
25 Investigation?
2445
1 A For almost 25 years.
2 Q How many of those twenty-five years have you been in the
3 latent print unit?
4 A Sixteen.
5 Q What is your title currently?
6 A Fingerprint specialist.
7 Q Can you tell us a little bit about the training you've
8 received in fingerprints?
9 A Sure. I first had a 13 week course for the
10 classification, comparison and identification of inked
11 fingerprints. I then had one year training in the location,
12 the preservation, the development and comparison of latent
13 fingerprints.
14 Since that time I've attended numerous educational
15 seminars sponsored by the International Association for
16 Identification or the IAI as well as local and state chapters
17 of the same organization. I attended a one-week course that
18 dealt in the comparison and identification of palm prints
19 which was taught by the Mississippi state crime lab. I've
20 also attended or participated in exchange visits with the Home
21 Office in England, the RCMP, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
22 in Canada, as well as the Baltic states, and attended
23 international symposiums on latent print development as well.
24 Q Have you published articles regarding latent print
25 detection?
2446
1 A Yes.
2 Q Have you participated in the training of others yourself?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Now, can you tell the jury what an inked fingerprint is?
5 A On the underneath side of your fingers or palms there is
6 raised portions of skin which is referred to as friction ridge
7 skin. And inked fingerprint is a recording of this friction
8 ridge skin. It's usually accomplished by applying a thin film
9 of black printer's ink and then transferring this image to a
10 fingerprint card. It can also be recorded electronically.
11 Q Can you tell us what a latent fingerprint is?
12 A A latent fingerprint is a reproduction of the same
13 friction ridges left whenever an item has been touched.
14 Latent print's usually invisible, it's left by chance, when
15 you have handled something. Latent prints are usually
16 invisible and they will need some type of development
17 technique to make the prints visible.
18 Q Now, can you describe for us the processes that you use to
19 develop latent fingerprints on both nonporous and porous
20 items?
21 A All specimens are at first examined using a visual
22 examination, because sometimes a contaminant may be present on
23 fingers and transfers this image to that item. The second
24 process is the laser or an alternate light source examination
25 which will cause a fingerprint if it's contaminated with
2447
1 certain B vitamin components, for instance, because it's flesh
2 when it's exposed to a laser light or an alternate light
3 source. After those two examinations have been completed,
4 specimens are separated according to substrate or specimen
5 type, meaning a porous or a nonporous. Nonporous is a surface
6 somewhat like a glass, painted wood, et cetera, where the
7 prints left on the surface itself.
8 Those processes that we use at that point would be
9 first the Cyanoacrylate process or the super glue process,
10 followed by a fluorescent dye which will adhere to the super
11 glue, and then when that item is exposed to a laser and an
12 alternate light source, the prints will then fluoresce.
13 The next step would be to apply a fingerprint powder.
14 If it's a porous item, after the visual and laser exams have
15 been conducted we first use the DFO process which will react
16 with amino acids present in a fingerprint and when this item
17 has been exposed to the light source the prints tend to
18 fluoresce.
19 The next process would be the Ninhydrin process which
20 also reacts with amino acids that are present, but causes the
21 print to develop usually a pink or purple color. The next
22 process will be the physical developer process which reacts
23 with lipid identifications or the fat that's present in the
24 fingerprint residue and would develop those prints.
25 Q Mr. Hollars, you mentioned porous items. Can you tell us,
2448
1 give us some examples of porous items?
2 A Porous is paper, cardboard, untreated wood, any substance
3 that the print would actually be absorbed into the specimen.
4 The best scenario is if you put a drop of water on it and you
5 saw it absorb that water that would be considered a porous
6 item. If it beaded on the surface it would be a nonporous
7 item.
8 Q Mr. Hollars, did there come a time when you were asked to
9 compare or assist in the comparison of latent prints with
10 inked prints in connection with the embassy bombing in
11 Nairobi, Kenya?
12 A Yes.
13 MR. KARAS: May I approach the witness, your Honor?
14 THE COURT: Yes.
15 Q Now, Mr. Hollars, I placed before you what have been
16 marked for identification as Government Exhibits 931, 994,
17 789, 697, 584 and 711. Can you tell us what those are,
18 please?
19 A It's a summary of the results of the examinations that
20 were conducted in connection with this case.
21 Q Did you compare those summaries with the notes and the
22 reports you prepared detailing the comparisons of latents and
23 inked fingerprints?
24 A Yes.
25 Q And do those summaries accurately reflect the results of
2449
1 your comparison?
2 A Yes.
3 Q Or I should say some of your comparisons?
4 A Some of them, yes.
5 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we offer Government Exhibits
6 931, 994, 789, 697, 584 and 711.
7 MR. BAUGH: No objection.
8 THE COURT: Received.
9 (Government's Exhibits 931, 994, 789, 697, 584 and
10 711 received in evidence)
11 Q Now, Mr. Hollars, if you could turn to, and if we could
12 display the first page of 931, and if you could just focus for
13 a minute on the very top the listing of the columns, and first
14 at the top you see where it says Harun's house.
15 The description there, is that something that's based
16 on your knowledge or what you were told?
17 A It's what I was told.
18 Q And the first column there, FBI number, can you tell us
19 how that's assigned?
20 A Whenever we receive a specimen or a piece of what's
21 evidentiary evidence to examine it has to be assigned a
22 number, a tracking number that will follow it throughout our
23 system. It's either assigned a K or a Q number, accordingly.
24 Q And can you tell us about the column labeled, item
25 description?
2450
1 A This is a description that was given to the item before it
2 was submitted to me.
3 Q And the next column, processes?
4 A The processes are the processes that I used in connection
5 with that particular Q or K item.
6 Q And those are the processes you described earlier?
7 A Yes.
8 Q And the column labeled, number of prints I gather means
9 the number of prints you found on the item?
10 A That's correct.
11 Q The next column where it says, number of IDs, could you
12 explain that please?
13 A The number of IDs indicate the number of prints. Even
14 though there was three prints that were developed on that
15 item, only two of those prints were identified with an
16 individual.
17 Q And the person who was identified is that the last column?
18 A That's correct.
19 Q Now, taking a look at that first row, FBI number K33 and
20 Government Exhibit 903, the column under processes can you
21 tell us what SG stands for?
22 A It's just an abbreviation for super glue or the
23 cyanoacrylate process.
24 Q And the initials there NIN?
25 A It's abbreviation for the Ninhydrin process.
2451
1 Q And below that where it says tape in parenthesis, and then
2 ram and PWD?
3 A It could be the ram stands for the fluorescent dye that
4 was used in this particular assistance. It's a combination of
5 rotamin and MBD and then the PWD is an abbreviation for
6 fingerprint powder.
7 Q Now, the next column over where it says page 3, ID number
8 1, and then later on page 20, ID number 6, can you explain
9 where it says ID number 1 and ID number 6?
10 A Sure. An inked fingerprint card when the prints are
11 recorded they start with the right thumb and give that the
12 designation of number 1 through the little finger which is
13 number 5. The exact same thing is done with the left hand
14 with the left thumb being number 6 and the left little being
15 number 10. That indicates the finger number that that print
16 was actually identified with.
17 Q Now, if we could turn to page 2 of Government Exhibit 931.
18 And focus on the last row there that begins K405.1.
19 Mr. Hollars, if you could just tell us the, describe
20 for us the fourth column, the processes that you used to
21 identify the fingerprint in that row?
22 A The V stands for the visual examination. The L stands for
23 the laser or alternate light source examination. DFO is the
24 fluorescent compound that reacts with the amino acids and the
25 N is just an abbreviation for the Ninhydrin process.
2452
1 Q And on that row does that indicate that you found one
2 print for Mohamed Rashed Daoud Al-'Owhali?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Mr. Hollars, I'm going to approach and show you what has
5 been marked for identification as Government Exhibit 913-LP.
6 Can you tell us what that exhibit is?
7 A It's an enlargement, one showing the latent print that was
8 developed on this K405.1 and the other is an enlargement of
9 the corresponding area of the inked fingerprint that appeared
10 on the fingerprint card it was identified with.
11 Q And according to the summary chart it's ID number 1 so
12 that would be the --
13 A The right thumb.
14 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we offer Government Exhibit
15 913-LP.
16 THE COURT: Received.
17 (Government's Exhibit 913-LP received in evidence)
18 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may I ask that Mr. Hollars
19 step down?
20 THE COURT: Yes.
21 MR. KARAS: Mr. Hollars, would you like to step down.
22 (Witness left stand)
23 Q Now, Mr. Hollars, if you could explain to the jury the
24 comparison that's contained in the enlarged print there that's
25 in that exhibit?
2453
1 A Sure. The chart that appears on your right is an
2 enlargement of the latent print that was developed on item
3 K405.1. The one on your left marked ink fingerprint
4 represents the corresponding area of the right thumb
5 impression appearing on the card with the name of Al-'Owhali.
6 The black lines represent the friction ridges that I
7 spoke of earlier. The white spaces represent the furrows or
8 the area of the plane friction ridges as appear on fingers.
9 The red lines and numbers are placed there to indicate some of
10 the corresponding characteristics that appear in the two
11 prints.
12 Now, when doing an identification the first thing we
13 take into consideration is the ridge flow, ridge structure,
14 ridge direction. For instance, this one indicates a
15 whirl-type pattern. The first analysis that we would do would
16 be to look for a fingerprint that has a whirl-type pattern.
17 You further break that down then into the
18 characteristic being a ridge that will end, a ridge that will
19 divide into two ridges or a dot. These points or these
20 characteristics should appear in the same location in the two
21 prints as well as the unit relationship being if there is two
22 ridges between point 1 and 2 and 1. There should be two
23 ridges between point 1 and 2 in the second one. That's how we
24 go about doing our comparison.
25 So beginning in the chart marked latent fingerprint
2454
1 we have a ridge that ends in the upper center of the
2 photograph. It's marked as point number 1. From point number
3 1 moving across one ridge to the second ridge, this ridge also
4 ends which is marked as point number 2. From point number 2
5 moving to the right across one, two, three, four, five, six
6 ridges, we find a ridge that ends which is marked as point
7 number 3.
8 Moving to the chart marked inked fingerprint in the
9 upper center portion of the fingerprint is a ridge that ends,
10 which is marked as point number 1. From point number 1,
11 moving to the left across one ridge is another ridge that ends
12 which is marked as point number 2. From point number 2 moving
13 to the right across the six ridges we find a ridge that ends
14 which is marked as point number 3.
15 The same prints in the same relative position on the
16 fingerprint as well as the same unit relationship has appeared
17 in these three characteristics. Point number 3 continuing
18 with the ink fingerprint, we tried to locate additional points
19 or characteristics that are present.
20 Moving to the left across four ridges we have a ridge
21 that ends which is marked as point number 4. From point
22 number 4 moving downward we have a short ridge, one end of
23 which is marked as point number 5. The other end which is
24 marked as point number 6. Moving to the left across one ridge
25 we have another ridge that ends which is marked as point
2455
1 number 7.
2 Going to the latent fingerprint we should find the
3 same characteristics. So moving across the four ridges from
4 point number 3 we find point number 4, which is a ridge that
5 ends in an upward direction. Following point number 4
6 downward we find a short ridge, one end of which is marked as
7 point number 5, the second which is marked as point number 6.
8 Moving from the short ridge to the left across one
9 ridge we have a ridge that ends which is marked as point
10 number 7. Using this method of comparison points that I
11 illustrated as well as others that are not marked in these two
12 photographs that I determined that the latent print that was
13 developed on K405.1, and the right thumb impression that
14 appeared on the fingerprint card bearing the name of
15 al-'Owhali were made by one and the same individual.
16 Q Now, the indication up to 13 represents that you found 13
17 identical points of comparison?
18 A No. I marked 13. There is additional ones that are
19 present.
20 Q And typically how many points of identification in common
21 do you require before you determine that the fingerprints are
22 identical?
23 A Seven.
24 Q Now, I'd like to show you what has been marked for
25 identification as Government Exhibit 696-LP. Is that an
2456
1 enlargement of a comparison between the inked fingerprint
2 identified as Mr. Odeh and a latent fingerprint that was
3 marked as Q788.5?
4 A Yes.
5 Q Now, if you could explain to the jury the basis upon the
6 comparison that is contained in 696?
7 A Sure. Once again the black lines represent the friction
8 ridges. The red lines numbers just point out some of the
9 characteristics that are present in the two photographs.
10 We'll begin with the chart marked latent fingerprint.
11 This is an enlargement of fingerprint that was present on a
12 lift which is designated Q788.5. Beginning in the upper
13 center of the photograph there is a ridge that ends which is
14 marked as point number 1. Moving downward across the five
15 ridges or six ridges -- five ridges, there is a ridge that
16 ends which is marked as point number 2. Directly underneath
17 point number 2 is a short ridge, the upper end of which is
18 marked as point number 3.
19 Moving to inked fingerprint in the upper center
20 portion is a ridge that ends which is marked as point number
21 1. From point number 1 moving down across the five ridges we
22 have a ridge that ends which is marked as point number 2.
23 Directly underneath point number 2 is a short ridge, the upper
24 end of which is marked as point number 3.
25 Moving to the right, we'll continue with the inked
2457
1 fingerprint, and this represents the right thumb print as it
2 appears on the fingerprint card bearing the name of Mr. Odeh.
3 From point number 3, moving to the right we see a
4 ridge that divides into two ridges. This is marked as point
5 number 4.
6 Directly underneath 4 with one intervening ridge is
7 another ridge that divides, which is marked as point number 5.
8 We follow the lower portion of that ridge to the left dropping
9 down two ridges, we have a ridge that ends which is marked
10 point number 6.
11 From point number 6 moving upward across one ridge we
12 have an ending ridge which is marked as point number 7. Going
13 back to the latent fingerprint, from point number 3, moving to
14 the right we have a ridge that divides into two ridges, which
15 is marked as point number 4.
16 From point number 4 dropping down across one
17 intervening ridge, the ridge that divides into two, which is
18 marked as point number 5.
19 Following the lower ridge from point number 5 to the
20 left, dropping down across two ridges is a ridge that ends
21 which is marked as point number 6. From point number 6 moving
22 upward across one ridge we have a ridge that ends which is
23 marked as point number 7.
24 So once again using these characteristics that I've
25 marked illustrated some additional ones that are unmarked in
2458
1 these two photographs and using this method of comparison that
2 I determined that the latent prints that was present on the
3 lift marked as Q788.5 and the right thumb impression that per
4 on the fingerprint card bearing the name of Mr. Odeh were made
5 by one and the same individual.
6 MR. KARAS: Thank you, Mr. Hollars.
7 Your Honor, at this time we offer Government Exhibits
8 696LP.
9 MR. BAUGH: No objection.
10 THE COURT: Received.
11 (Government's Exhibit 696LP received in evidence)
12 (Witness resumed stand)
13 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we have a stipulation that
14 Q788.5 which was the subject of the enlargement is the latent
15 print lift that was testified to by Agent John Hughes
16 yesterday afternoon.
17 I have no further questions.
18 MR. WILFORD: Your Honor, I have some questions.
19 THE COURT: Yes.
20 CROSS-EXAMINATION
21 BY MR. WILFORD:
22 Q Good morning, Agent Hollars.
23 A Good morning.
24 Q How are you?
25 A I'm fine.
2459
1 Q Sir, you conducted along with Agent Belcastro several
2 examinations of latent fingerprints that were recovered from
3 Kenya, isn't that correct?
4 A That's correct.
5 Q And during the course of those comparisons what methods
6 did you use?
7 A What methods did I use for comparison?
8 Q Comparting the prints?
9 A The method that I just illustrated is the method that we
10 used to do a comparison an actual comparison, the same method
11 I demonstrated to you just a second ago.
12 Q That's strictly a visual comparison?
13 A Are you asking the processes?
14 Q The processes that you used?
15 A Okay. On a particular item?
16 Q Yes.
17 A Which particular item?
18 Q Well, for instance, there was a latent print that you
19 examined, K538. It's not one that you testified about on
20 those charts. This is K538. Would you like to see the report
21 to refresh your recollection or are you prepared to testify
22 about it?
23 A It would help if I may see the report.
24 MR. WILFORD: Your Honor, may I approach the witness?
25 THE COURT: Yes.
2460
1 Q I'm showing the witness what is previously marked 3522-3.
2 (Pause)
3 THE COURT: Is there a pending question?
4 MR. WILFORD: He was referring to the report, your
5 Honor.
6 Q Have you had an opportunity to complete your reference to
7 the report?
8 A Yes.
9 Q What processes did you undertake in examining the latent
10 print, that particular latent print K538?
11 A The particular print that's present here?
12 Q Yes.
13 A I do not know the process that was used to develop it.
14 It's not indicated in the report.
15 Q Well, during the course of your examination of all these
16 latent prints what processes were used?
17 A The processes that were used on this book would have been
18 the visual examination, the laser or inherent fluoresce
19 examination and at least a Ninhydrin process.
20 Q Did you use any kind of computer comparative analysis?
21 A No.
22 Q Now, sir, the latent print that was recovered from, that
23 has been designated as K538 that was a print that was
24 recovered from an exercise book that was recovered in Mr.
25 Odeh's home, isn't that correct?
2461
1 A I do not recall.
2 Q Take a look at that document.
3 A It still doesn't indicate where it was retrieved from.
4 Q Look at the third page, please.
5 A Third page just states that it was a faded blue book
6 marked exercise book.
7 Q Okay.
8 MR. WILFORD: If I may have a moment to approach the
9 witness?
10 THE COURT: Yes.
11 Q Showing you the witness 3523-5. The book was marked Crown
12 exercise book, right?
13 A That's correct.
14 Q And on that book a fingerprint was recovered; is that
15 correct?
16 A That's correct.
17 Q And you did an analysis to compare that fingerprint to Mr.
18 Odeh's fingerprint, isn't that correct?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And as a result of that comparison that print, the latent
21 print you recovered did not match Mr. Odeh, isn't that
22 correct?
23 A That's correct.
24 Q Now, sir, you also lifted a print which was known as
25 K554.3. Do you remember that? Not lifted, but compared that
2462
1 print. And that's -- I think you have that one up there,
2 don't you?
3 A Yes.
4 Q That's the chart that you have, right? 554, is that your
5 chart?
6 A That's correct.
7 MR. WILFORD: Could we have that displayed.
8 A It's not a chart. This chart here.
9 Q What number is that?
10 A It's exhibit 711.
11 MR. WILFORD: Could we have 711, please.
12 Q And you did a comparison of that latent print; is that
13 correct?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q And you compared it to Mr. Odeh's, isn't that correct?
16 A I do not recall.
17 Q Well, who did you compare it to?
18 A Once the print was identified it was not compared with
19 anyone after that point.
20 Q So you had a person that it was identified as belonging
21 to, isn't that correct?
22 A On K554.3, yes.
23 Q And that particular item is identified as being
24 Mr. Moustafa Ali Haf's print, isn't that correct?
25 A Yes.
2463
1 Q Ali Elbishy I'm sorry?
2 A Ali Elbishy.
3 Q Isn't it a fact, sir, that those prints were recovered
4 from the residence of Mohammed Odeh?
5 A I don't know.
6 MR. WILFORD: May I approach the witness with 3522-5.
7 Q Does that refresh your recollection, sir?
8 A Yes.
9 Q Could you give us an answer?
10 A The indications are that this item, K554.3 was recovered
11 from the residence of Odeh.
12 Q Now, sir, did you have an opportunity to examine latent
13 fingerprints that were recovered from airline tickets and
14 passports?
15 A Yes.
16 Q And during the course of that examination did you recover
17 any fingerprints that were matched to Mr. Odeh?
18 A None that I recall, no.
19 Q Now, did you have an opportunity, sir, to conduct a
20 comparison of prints, latent prints that were recovered from a
21 Teach Yourself Swahili book?
22 A Yes.
23 Q Do you remember that?
24 A Somewhat, yes.
25 Q And that book was recovered from Mr. Odeh, isn't that
2464
1 correct?
2 A Once again I don't recall.
3 MR. WILFORD: Your Honor, if I may have just one
4 moment. I'm sorry.
5 (Pause)
6 The government will stipulate that was in fact
7 recovered from Mr. Odeh.
8 Q Now, during the course of that comparison you had 40
9 latent prints to compare, isn't that correct?
10 A I don't recall the exact number.
11 MR. WILFORD: May I approach the witness, your Honor?
12 THE COURT: Yes.
13 Q Showing the witness 3522-49. Does that refresh your
14 recollection, sir?
15 A Yes.
16 Q There were about 40 latents that you had to work with?
17 A Not just on that book itself. There were two items.
18 Q Two items?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And 25 of them matched Mr. Odeh, isn't that correct?
21 A That's correct.
22 Q And what was the other item that the prints came off of?
23 A It was Umsofa magazine.
24 Q Some kind of magazine?
25 A Yes.
2465
1 Q Now, during the course of your investigation you examined
2 fingerprints from -- withdrawn -- from a wide variety of
3 locations, isn't that correct, from Kenya, from people's
4 homes, from vehicles, a wide array of locations, isn't that
5 correct?
6 A The indications were it was from a different area. We did
7 all in Washington, I did.
8 Q I know you don't know personally where they came from
9 because you didn't lift them, but you received from that
10 report and you relied on that, is that correct?
11 A That's right.
12 Q These came from various locations in Kenya, from people's
13 homes, from vehicles from people's personal possessions, isn't
14 that correct?
15 A That's correct.
16 Q And that, in fact, occurred not only with items that were
17 seized or found in August of 1998, but also in September of
18 1998, and items that were also seized in 1999. Isn't that
19 correct?
20 A Yes, pretty much so.
21 Q And through all of those examinations would it be fair to
22 say that the people who owned or possessed these items all had
23 Arabic names?
24 A If I recall, yes.
25 MR. WILFORD: Thank you. Nothing further.
2466
1 MR. BAUGH: No questions.
2 MR. KARAS: Brief redirect, your Honor.
3 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
4 BY MR. KARAS:
5 Q Now, Mr. Hollars, you were asked some questions about the
6 exhibit marked as FBI number K538. Do you recall that?
7 A 538?
8 Q Yes.
9 A Yes.
10 Q And that's the exercise book according to the report?
11 A Correct.
12 Q Within that document you only found one identifiable
13 latent print; is that correct or not?
14 A That's correct.
15 Q And where, on which page was that one print found?
16 A It was on page 1.
17 Q Now, if somebody touches something, even a piece of paper
18 do they always leave a fingerprint?
19 A No.
20 Q But you were asked the question about another document
21 where you identified the print of a Moustafa Ali Elbishy. Do
22 you recall that?
23 A Yes.
24 Q And you indicated that once you identified the print as
25 belonging to Mr. Elbishy you stopped doing any other
2467
1 comparison. Can you tell us why?
2 A Fingerprints are permanent and are individually unique.
3 Fingerprint is permanent in the fact that these ridges are
4 formed before birth and they are going to remain the same
5 throughout your life, so they are individually unique and this
6 ridge arrangement as I demonstrated to you there, is unique
7 not only to the individual, but to an individual finger of an
8 individual.
9 So once the print is identified it would not be
10 identified with someone else at that point.
11 MR. KARAS: Thank you. No further questions.
12 MR. WILFORD: If I may, your Honor?
13 THE COURT: Yes.
14 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
15 BY MR. WILFORD:
16 Q With respect to exhibit K538, you did compare those prints
17 however to Mr. Odeh, isn't that correct?
18 A Yes.
19 Q And there was no match?
20 A No match.
21 Q And, sir, you did in fact compare the prints that you
22 recovered in the book that was seized from Mr. Odeh Teach
23 Yourself Swahili, isn't that correct?
24 A Would you repeat that?
25 Q The book that was seized from Mr. Odeh, Teach Yourself
2468
1 Swahili, you did compare the books on this print, right?
2 A Yes.
3 Q And they did in fact match Mr. Odeh?
4 A Yes.
5 Q 25 times, isn't that correct?
6 A Twenty-five, yes.
7 MR. WILFORD: Thank you sir. Nothing further.
8 MR. KARAS: Very brief, your Honor.
9 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
10 BY MR. KARAS:
11 Q Mr. Hollars, the exhibit K538 how many identifiable prints
12 did you find in that document?
13 A One.
14 Q And when you made the comparison did you compare that one
15 print to several individuals in addition to Mr. Odeh?
16 A Yes.
17 Q Can you tell us some of the individuals -- well, let me
18 ask you this, did you compare it to Mr. Moustafa Ali Elbishy?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And did you compare the prints to Abdilahi Mohamed Fazul?
21 A Yes.
22 Q And did you compare the prints to Fahid Mohamed Ally?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Did you compare the prints to Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan?
25 A Yes.
2469
1 Q Did you find any identifications among those individuals?
2 A No.
3 MR. KARAS: Nothing further.
4 MR. WILFORD: The final question I have, your Honor.
5 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
6 BY MR. WILFORD:
7 Q You have no idea who that print belongs to, is that
8 correct, sir?
9 A No.
10 MR. WILFORD: Thank you.
11 THE COURT: Thank you, agent. You may step down.
12 (Witness excused)
13 THE COURT: We'll take our mid-morning recess.
14 (Recess)
15 (Continued on next page)
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2470
1 (Jury present)
2 THE COURT: The government may call its next witness.
3 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the government calls Kelly
4 Mount.
5 KELLY MOUNT,
6 called as a witness by the government,
7 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
8 DIRECT EXAMINATION
9 BY MR. KARAS:
10 Q Good afternoon. Can you tell us how you are employed.
11 A I am employed as a forensic chemist with the FBI
12 laboratory.
13 Q For how long have you been a forensic chemist?
14 A Almost 15 years now. In June it will be 15 years.
15 Q All with the FBI?
16 A All with the FBI.
17 Q Can you tell us a little about your educational
18 background.
19 A I have a bachelor of science degree in chemistry from East
20 Kentucky University, as well as a master's in forensic science
21 from George Washington University.
22 Q Can you tell us about some training you received in
23 chemistry since your formal education.
24 A Certainly. Since I have been at the FBI these past 15
25 years now, I have had numerous occasions to attend various
2471
1 courses which are related to various analytical techniques
2 that we use in the laboratory, both classes taught at the FBI
3 academy as well as with various vendors, instrument-specific
4 manufacturers. Also during that time I have had occasion,
5 many occasions to attend numerous conferences which are
6 related to various scientific areas, including explosives
7 analysis.
8 Q Have you made presentations yourself at some of these
9 conferences?
10 A I certainly have, yes.
11 Q Have you published any articles in the field of chemistry?
12 A Yes, I have. I have coauthored a number of papers in the
13 area of explosives analysis which have appeared in various
14 scientific journals.
15 Q Can you briefly describe for us the difference between a
16 low explosive and a high explosive?
17 A Yes. A low explosive is an explosive which we use the
18 term it deflagrates. It burns. Also, the reaction, the
19 chemical reaction that takes place within the explosives
20 travels at a rate less than the speed of sound.
21 Q And a high explosive?
22 A A high explosive is an explosive which we use the term
23 detonates. It requires a shock to initiate, and the reaction,
24 chemical reaction in this travels greater than the speed of
25 sound.
2472
1 Q Are you familiar with the phrase explosive residue?
2 A I am.
3 Q Can you tell us what that is?
4 A An explosive residue is simply a residue, something that
5 you can't see visually or microscopically as it relates to
6 explosives. These can be either residues from a post-blast
7 event or preblast.
8 Q As a forensic chemist, is one of your jobs to detect
9 explosive residue on items?
10 A Yes, it is.
11 Q Can you tell us about the procedure that you employ to
12 detect explosive residue in items.
13 A Certainly. In the FBI we have what we call standard
14 operating procedures. We analyze every case that comes in the
15 laboratory in which explosive analysis is requested in the
16 same manner. The standard operating procedure begins with,
17 the first thing we do is simply a visual and/or a microscopic
18 examination of the item.
19 Q After you do the visual or microscopic examination, what
20 is the next step in the process?
21 A Depending upon what we find, if we find something that we
22 think we want to analyze further by this means, we may
23 physically remove that item for separate analysis.
24 Q What type of item might be removed for further analysis?
25 A Just any kind of particle or -- you know, a particle that
2473
1 looks of interest to us for further analysis. This could
2 include something that may look like a piece of unconsumed
3 explosive, metal fragments, shavings, anything like that.
4 Q If you don't observe any items or particles, what is the
5 next step in the process?
6 A The next step in our procedure is the extraction process.
7 Q What is involved in the extraction process?
8 A In the extraction process, it is sort of a two-pronged
9 analysis, if you will. We are looking for two different kinds
10 of explosives, basically. We are looking for organic
11 explosives, which tend to be your high explosives, like your
12 NG, your TNT, your EGN, things like that. For that we conduct
13 an extraction using an inorganic solvent, in this case
14 acetone. Acetone is simply fingernail polish remover.
15 Q Can you tell us what you mean by extraction.
16 A When we extract the item, depending on the material, we
17 are simply rinsing it with the acetone when we are doing this.
18 Q You mentioned that the inorganic family tends to relate to
19 high explosives. Is there another grouping?
20 A Yes. As I mentioned, we have a two-prong process for our
21 extraction. The other side of the procedure we use deionized
22 water. That covers typically the low explosive side of the
23 family, which would include black powder, pyrotechnics like
24 fireworks. Those are all readily dissolvable in water.
25 Q Staying for the moment on the analysis of inorganic items,
2474
1 can you after the solvent extraction?
2 A Basically we do a filtration step which cleans it up a
3 little bit before we put it into our laboratory
4 instrumentation, which can be quite sensitive and susceptible
5 to getting clogged with debris.
6 Q What do you do once you clean the sample?
7 A We concentrate the filtrate, the extract that is left
8 behind, down to just a couple of microlitres of solution.
9 Q What do you do with this remaining solution?
10 A Once we have concentrated the samples, we will go to the
11 laboratory equipment, the instrumentation, and begin our lab
12 analyses.
13 Q What is the first instrumentation that you use?
14 A The first instrument we would use would be a gas
15 chromatography with chemiluminescence detection. We call it
16 EGIS, for obvious reasons.
17 Q We will call it EGIS going forward. Can you briefly
18 describe what is involved in the EGIS procedure.
19 A Certainly. On the front of the EGIS I mentioned a gas
20 chromatograph. Chromatography is simply a separation tool.
21 The best way to describe this to you, I think, would be, say
22 you have a bag of coins. You would simply pour that bag of
23 coins into the chromatograph. It is going to separate them.
24 It is going to separate the quarters from the dimes from the
25 nickels. Not only will it separate them, it will tell you how
2475
1 many of each of those things that you have. So it is a
2 separation tool that we use in the laboratory.
3 Q At the back end of that, what does that process tell you
4 about the solvent that you have put in?
5 A Simply the solvent we put in would have different chemical
6 molecules. It is going to separate those out, much like I
7 mentioned that it would separate the coins. It will conduct a
8 simple separation and tell us how much of each of those
9 chemicals that we have within that solution.
10 Q When that process is done, does it tell you whether or not
11 there are any chemicals consistent with explosive residue?
12 A As I mentioned with the EGIS, there is a chemical
13 luminescence detector on the tail end, after it goes through
14 the chromatograph. That chemical luminescence detector is
15 very specific for explosives. It is looking for nitro groups,
16 which explosives contain. So it is a very specific detector.
17 We use it as a screening tool in the laboratory.
18 Q If the detector detects no explosive residue, is there any
19 further step in the process?
20 A No. We are done with the sample at that point.
21 Q If the detector does detect explosives, what if anything
22 do you do next?
23 A If it does detect explosives, we go on with the laboratory
24 protocol to a confirmatory step.
25 Q Can you tell us about the confirmatory steps you take.
2476
1 A Yes. Depending on the kind of explosive that the EGIS
2 tells us it is indicating the presence of, we may go to one of
3 a number of different pieces of analytical equipment that we
4 have in the laboratory. Typically, we would use a gas
5 chromatograph, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, or liquid
6 chromatography/mass spectrometry to confirm the presence of
7 those explosives.
8 Q Can you tell us the difference between those two methods?
9 A Certainly. A gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, the
10 sample is in a gas phase. With a liquid chromatography/mass
11 spectrometry, the sample is in a liquid phase. Different
12 explosives lend themselves to analyses better by one technique
13 or the other.
14 Q Can you give us some examples of where you might use the
15 gas versus the liquid?
16 A Sure. The gas chromatography/mass spectrometry works very
17 well for TNT, trinitrotoluene, for example.
18 Q What about the liquid?
19 A Liquid chromatography works well for other kinds of things
20 that are more firmly labile, such as nitroglycerin, PETN,
21 which is pentaerythritol tetranitrate.
22 Q Can you tell us briefly how those processes confirm
23 whether or not you have a positive result?
24 A Certainly. Again I mentioned that we have a chromatograph
25 on the front end again. It is the same kind of chromatography
2477
1 that I explained with the EGIS. It is a separation tool. It
2 will separate the components and give you amounts of each of
3 those. After that we have a detector. It is a mass
4 spectrometer. Whether we are introducing it through a gas
5 phase or liquid phase, the mass spectrometer is on the end of
6 that instrumentation. The mass spectrometer basically gives
7 you a molecular fingerprint of those separated chemicals as
8 they come through.
9 Q Is that molecular fingerprint something that is unique to
10 certain chemicals, to each chemical?
11 A Yes.
12 Q This process you described is where you have not made a
13 physical extraction of an item that you have identified, is
14 that correct, like a particle or something you mentioned
15 earlier?
16 A Right, exactly.
17 Q Can you tell us what you do when you physically remove an
18 object from an item you are analyzing.
19 A Again, it would depend what type of object we are talking
20 about.
21 Q Why don't you give us an example involving a metallic
22 object.
23 A OK. If I saw something under visual or microscopic
24 examination that I mentioned I would physically remove for
25 separate analysis, if the object appeared metallic, shiny, our
2478
1 protocol would call for that sample to go to the scanning
2 electron microscope with an energy dispersed xray detector on
3 that for analysis, better known as the SEL.
4 Q Can you briefly tell us what that process involves.
5 A Certainly. We in the FBI laboratory consider that a
6 stand-alone confirmatory method for elemental analysis. It
7 will give you elemental information.
8 Q Which is?
9 A Specific --
10 Q To each --
11 A To each element on the periodic table that the instrument
12 is capable of seeing.
13 Q Can you tell us a little bit about the quality control
14 procedures that you follow within the lab?
15 A We again have standard operating procedures which
16 incorporate quality assurance. For example, in trace cases
17 where we are looking for explosive residues, we have a
18 separate room in which we conduct all the analyses, which is
19 separate from our general laboratory benches. So that is the
20 first step, that we would go to an isolated location for these
21 analyses. When we enter the room, we wear Ty-Vec suits,
22 disposable gloves. We are changing these things frequently.
23 The room is screened through each and every case. We go
24 through a decontamination process in each and every case.
25 Q Ms. Mount, did there come a time that you were asked to
2479
1 analyze items that had been originally brought from Nairobi,
2 Kenya?
3 A Yes.
4 Q Did you conduct an analysis of these items consistent with
5 the protocols you have just described?
6 A I did.
7 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may I approach the witness?
8 THE COURT: Yes.
9 Q Ms. Mount, I have placed before you what have been marked
10 for identification as Exhibits 844, 787, 788, 956, 993, and
11 571. Can you tell us what those are?
12 A These are summary charts of the specimens which I analyzed
13 in the laboratory and of my laboratory results.
14 Q So we are clear, these are charts that reflect some of the
15 analysis you did on the items brought to you from Kenya; is
16 that right?
17 A Right.
18 Q Did you compare these charts with your notes and the
19 reports you prepared in connection with the analysis of the
20 items?
21 A I did.
22 Q Are they accurate?
23 A Yes.
24 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we offer Government's
25 Exhibits 844, 787, 788, 956, 993, and 571.
2480
1 MR. WILFORD: Without objection.
2 THE COURT: Received.
3 (Government's Exhibits 844, 787, 788, 956, 993 and
4 571 received in evidence)
5 MR. KARAS: Now if we could display 844, please.
6 Q Ms. Mount, would you take a look at 844, and the breakdown
7 at the top says U.S. Embassy Nairobi. Is that what was
8 represented to you as being the origin of those items?
9 A Yes, it is.
10 Q The column labeled FBI number, is that assigned by the
11 lab?
12 A Yes. That is assigned upon entry into the FBI laboratory.
13 Q The column is labeled item. Who is it that labeled the
14 items that are contained thereunder?
15 A That would have been by the collecting agents.
16 Q But not by you?
17 A Not by me.
18 Q The far column is the result of your analysis?
19 A That's correct.
20 Q You mentioned that you use certain methods of extraction.
21 Do you see here on 844 the items are listed as swabbings. Can
22 you tell us how it is that you go about extracting residue
23 from swabbings.
24 A Certainly. The swabbing, just as a general term, is a
25 material which we are just simply wiping across the surface of
2481
1 something for collection. In this case we were generally
2 dealing with just cotton balls much like you would purchase at
3 a drugstore.
4 As far as the analyses, when I received them I would
5 go through the protocol as I mentioned to you, the visual and
6 the microscopic. Then I would extract them. I would take a
7 couple of microlitres of acetone, rinse them straight across
8 the surface of this cotton ball, extract that off, filter it,
9 reduce it as I mentioned earlier, and then analyze it using
10 the laboratory instrumentation.
11 Q Government's Exhibit No. 843, which corresponds to FBI
12 Q125, which is listed as the swabbing from U.S. Embassy, it
13 says there that you found TNT; is that correct?
14 A That is correct.
15 Q Is TNT considered a high explosive?
16 A It is a high explosive.
17 Q If you could turn and if we could display to Government's
18 Exhibit 787. Do you see on the far right-hand column there
19 are three instances where you found PETN on swabbings from 43
20 Runda Estates?
21 A That is correct.
22 Q Can you tell us whether or not PETN is a high explosive?
23 A PETN is also a high explosive, yes.
24 Q Do you know what kind of use is made of PETN in connection
25 with explosives?
2482
1 A It has several uses. It may be found in blasting caps.
2 It can be used in detonating cord. It can be used as an
3 explosive in and of itself.
4 Q If we could turn and if we could display Government's
5 Exhibit 788. Do you see on the right-hand column there are
6 five references to aluminum. Can you tell us what aluminum is
7 used for in an explosive?
8 A Aluminum is sometimes added to an explosive as additional
9 fuel for the explosive. It would raise the heat of reaction
10 in the explosive.
11 Q If you could turn to and if we could display Government's
12 Exhibit 956. The first two items there, the hiking boots
13 found in Harun's house in the Comoros, what kind of extraction
14 method did you use to get residue off a hiking boot?
15 A In this particular case I took a cotton ball swab and
16 wiped that across the surface of the boots, and then extracted
17 much like any other swab.
18 Q Would you have vacuum items to collect residue?
19 A Vacuuming is a common technique which we use for cloth or
20 clothing type of items. That is typical.
21 MR. KARAS: Thank you. No further questions.
22 MR. WILFORD: I have questions.
23 CROSS-EXAMINATION
24 BY MR. WILFORD:
25 Q Good afternoon, Agent Mount.
2483
1 A Good afternoon.
2 Q How are you doing?
3 A Just fine, thank you.
4 Q Agent Mount, when you were describing the area that you
5 conduct your examination for explosive residue, you indicated
6 that that is an entirely separate and distinct room from where
7 your ordinary laboratory is; is that correct?
8 A That is correct.
9 Q Your ordinary laboratory where you do your forensic
10 analysis, are there other types of agents doing other types of
11 analysis in that laboratory?
12 A In our general bench space, yes.
13 Q Are there people doing document examinations?
14 A No. It's within the chemistry unit, so chemistry type of
15 examinations would be conducted there only.
16 Q The reason for the separate room and the Ty-Vec suit and
17 gloves is to make sure that you maintain the integrity of your
18 examination; isn't that correct?
19 A That is correct, yes.
20 Q And that is because these explosive residues that we are
21 talking about are truly microscopic particles; is that
22 correct?
23 A Or less than microscopic, yes.
24 Q And that can be transferred so many different ways that
25 you want to have a pristine environment when you are
2484
1 conducting your examinations; is that correct?
2 A That is correct, yes.
3 Q Agent Mount, with respect to your assignment of numbers of
4 particular items, do you assign a separate laboratory number
5 to each item which is different from, for instance, a K item
6 that you receive from an agent?
7 A We assign all the Q and K numbers in the laboratory.
8 Those numbers are not assigned in the field by the field
9 agents. When it crosses the laboratory doors, that is when
10 those numbers are assigned.
11 Q The WO number, what is that?
12 A Excuse me.
13 Q Is there a WO number?
14 A WO?
15 Q Yes.
16 A I am not familiar with that.
17 Q Is there a lab number?
18 A There is a lab number, yes.
19 Q What is that?
20 A The laboratory number indicates, if you look at a number,
21 the first two digits are the year in which it came in, the
22 next two are the month, the next two are the date, and the
23 last three digits are simply that number case that entered
24 through our evidence control center on that particular day.
25 Q When items are brought to you and you are doing this
2485
1 examination for explosive residue, would it be fair to say
2 that you would like to have each item separate from the other
3 items that you want to examine? Do you follow?
4 A Not exactly.
5 Q You wouldn't want to have a large group of items in, say,
6 a bucket or something like that. You would like to have each
7 thing sealed in a plastic bag and examine it and know the
8 origin of it; is that fair to say?
9 A It would depend upon where the samples are collected.
10 Certainly if they were in association with one another at the
11 collection site, then the necessity of separating them out for
12 transport is not as great. But certainly from different sites
13 I would want those separated most definitely, yes.
14 Q Agent Mount, when the high explosive device is detonated,
15 these particles go into billions and billions of particles; is
16 that correct?
17 A That is correct.
18 Q Could you describe that to the jury, please, how small
19 these particles are.
20 A It is hard to exactly describe it. It depends on how
21 complete the explosion is. If it explodes and functions as
22 designed, certainly gasses are left behind in large part. If
23 it doesn't fully function, you might find bits of unconsumed
24 materials. Explosions are chaotic events. They never occur
25 the same manner any two times.
2486
1 Q In the materials that you examined from the embassy, you
2 didn't recover any undischarged explosives, did you? You
3 recovered only residue, right?
4 A Residues, right. Nothing physically -- right.
5 Q When you do a comparison of the residue that is recovered,
6 do you do a measurement of how much TNT you recover?
7 A No. That is not possible, actually.
8 Q Why isn't it possible?
9 A Again, as I mentioned, explosions are chaotic events. It
10 is impossible to predict where the residues are going to go.
11 Not only not knowing the starting materials, you couldn't
12 offer any kind of quantification associated with that.
13 Q You can't even measure the amount of residue that is
14 recovered?
15 A Certainly with the techniques I have, there are stronger
16 signals than others produced by the instrumentation, but I
17 would not be able to fully quantitate a given amount of
18 explosives as a starting material, no.
19 Q You answered another question that I was going to ask
20 later, but this question is, when you actually recover the
21 explosive residue, can you quantitatively measure the amount
22 that you recover, not --
23 A No, no.
24 Q You have no way of doing it?
25 A No.
2487
1 Q There are no instruments in the FBI lab which permit you
2 to do that?
3 A Not post-blast, no.
4 Q In your examination of the items that you admitted into
5 evidence, did you use a microscope?
6 A In some instances, yes.
7 Q And you used a high-powered microscope?
8 A For some samples a scanning electron microscope was used,
9 which is very high-powered.
10 Q You also used the EGIS examination for each item; is that
11 correct?
12 A That is correct.
13 Q Were there particular items where you used other means of
14 examination other than simply EGIS and microscopic
15 examination?
16 A Well, EGIS is a part of our standard protocol, so each
17 sample would have been analyzed using that. I guess I don't
18 know what you are asking beyond that.
19 Q You didn't use any other method besides the EGIS and
20 microscopic examination?
21 A Yes, most definitely.
22 Q What do you did?
23 A The gass chromatograph/mass spectrometer, the liquid
24 chromatograph/mass spectrometer, scanning electron microscope.
25 Other tools were used, certainly.
2488
1 MR. WILFORD: Thank you very much.
2 THE COURT: Mr. Baugh?
3 MR. BAUGH: Just a few. Thank you.
4 CROSS-EXAMINATION
5 BY MR. BAUGH:
6 Q Ms. Mount, I notice that on the swabbings that were done,
7 like inside the bathroom and inside the drain trap, there is
8 aluminum there.
9 A Certainly.
10 Q But it appears that on the post-explosive samples there is
11 no aluminum.
12 A That is correct, I didn't find any aluminum post-blast.
13 Q Also, when it comes to these TNT particles, you understand
14 how lay people have a hard time understanding how small these
15 pieces are.
16 A Right.
17 Q In fact, it's smaller than small.
18 A That is true.
19 Q You said usually, if the explosion goes exactly according
20 to plan, most of the TNT is going to be consumed in the
21 explosion.
22 A That's correct.
23 Q Such as an engineer-designed airline bomb that is dropped
24 from an airplane, that would have better characteristics than,
25 say, something stuck in the back of a truck.
2489
1 A I can't say that.
2 Q Tell the jury this. Did you see the pictures of the bomb
3 site at Nairobi with that big pillar of smoke?
4 A I believe I did see some of those, yes.
5 Q It would be expected to find explosive residue in that
6 pillar of debris and smoke, wouldn't it?
7 A Possibly, possibly not.
8 Q Further, if the TNT was residually in that pillar of
9 smoke, if I walked through that pillar of smoke, I could get
10 TNT residue on me, couldn't I?
11 A Possibly. Again --
12 Q That's fine. Further, however high that cloud goes, if
13 that cloud has TNT residue in it, anybody who is downwind from
14 that cloud, if there is TNT residue in it, it can adhere to,
15 right?
16 A Potentially, yes.
17 Q That cloud could go several hundred yards, several
18 kilometers?
19 A Certainly.
20 Q Certainly. Also, if one piece of clothing had TNT residue
21 on it, or PETN residue on it, and it was put into a paper bag
22 with a bunch of other clothes that when they went in there
23 didn't have that residue, and they were carting around that
24 bag for a few days, there could be cross contamination,
25 wouldn't it?
2490
1 A Possibly.
2 Q Am I correct that TNT has a certain, how should I say,
3 adherence quality to it? It is sort of sticky, the residue
4 is?
5 A Some of it.
6 Q The fact that on certain items you did not find aluminum
7 but on swabs that were taken at the site where the government
8 believes the bomb was built you did find aluminum --
9 A That's correct.
10 Q Is it logical that the aluminum would have been consumed
11 in the blast?
12 A I couldn't answer that.
13 Q If all of your post-explosion swabbings do not have
14 aluminum and all your preexplosive swabbings do have aluminum,
15 would that indicate to you that more or a majority of the
16 aluminum was consumed in the blast?
17 A Not necessarily.
18 Q No aluminum was found in Mr. Al-'Owhali's samples, were
19 there?
20 A I am not sure --
21 Q Referring to Exhibit 571, summary of exhibit analysis by
22 Kelly Mount.
23 A That is correct.
24 Q These K numbers that are going down the left margin, I
25 believe in response to Mr. Wilford's -- that's Mr. Wilford --
2491
1 question, you assigned those K numbers?
2 A I didn't, but that was done in the explosives unit
3 laboratory, yes.
4 Q So the fact that each of these items have a separate
5 number doesn't mean that each of these items came in a
6 separate sterile container.
7 A That is correct.
8 Q Who -- when I say who, I don't mean the person, but would
9 a technician assign those numbers?
10 A Typically, that is the way it works. An examiner and/or
11 technician who is the primary examiner on the case that
12 received it would assign those numbers.
13 Q Doesn't anybody ever preserve the original packaging --
14 A Yes, certainly.
15 Q Where is the original packaging that this clothing came
16 in?
17 A I would assume it is still with the items.
18 Q If you took one pair of contaminated clothing, let's say
19 someone was wearing in the explosion, and you mixed it with a
20 bunch of clothes that he wasn't wearing in the explosion and
21 you put it in a bag, how long would it have to stay in the bag
22 before there would be cross-contamination -- you can't tell,
23 could you?
24 A I can't.
25 Q It would depend on how long it was there and where it was
2492
1 and all that?
2 A I would think.
3 Q If I was standing with my bathing suit on and I was
4 downwind of that cloud, the TNT would adhere to my person,
5 wouldn't it?
6 A Possibly.
7 Q Then if I put on clothing over the top of it, I would
8 cross-contaminate the clothing, right?
9 A Possibly.
10 MR. BAUGH: Thank you. Pass the witness.
11 THE COURT: Anything further?
12 MR. WILFORD: No, your Honor.
13 MR. KARAS: Brief redirect, your Honor?
14 THE COURT: Yes, redirect.
15 REDIRECT EXAMINATION
16 BY MR. KARAS:
17 Q Ms. Mount, you were asked questions about what happens if
18 clothes that are contaminated with TNT are mixed with clothes
19 that originally don't have TNT. Do you recall that?
20 A Right.
21 Q Is cross-contamination from one article of clothing a
22 guarantee with another article of clothing?
23 A No, it is not a guarantee.
24 Q You were asked questions about how you could collect TNT
25 on your person if you walked through a cloud that results from
2493
1 a TNT explosion. Do you recall that?
2 A Yes.
3 Q Could you also get TNT on your person if you are making a
4 TNT bomb?
5 A Yes, you could.
6 MR. KARAS: No further questions.
7 THE COURT: Very well. Thank you.
8 RECROSS-EXAMINATION
9 BY MR. WILFORD:
10 Q Agent Mount, if TNT is being ground preexplosion, being
11 ground up, the person that is handling that ground TNT, their
12 hands and clothing would be loaded with it; wouldn't that be
13 fair to say?
14 A Potentially, is what I would say.
15 (Continued on next page)
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2494
1 MR. WILFORD: Thank you. Nothing further.
2 THE COURT: Thank you, ma'am. You may step down.
3 (Witness excused)
4 MR. BUTLER: The government has a few stipulations to
5 read. The first stipulation has been marked for
6 identification as Government Exhibit 41.
7 It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the
8 parties that if called as a witness an official of the United
9 States Department of State would testify as follows:
10 1. Government's Exhibit 813 is a true copy of the
11 lease for the property on which the United States Embassy in
12 Nairobi, Kenya, was located as of August 7, 1998.
13 It is further stipulated and agreed that this
14 stipulation may be received in evidence as a government
15 exhibit at trial.
16 The government would move the admission of the
17 stipulation, which is Government's Exhibit 41, and the lease,
18 which is Government's Exhibit 813.
19 THE COURT: Received.
20 (Government's Exhibits 41 and 813 received in
21 evidence)
22 MR. BUTLER: The second stipulation has been
23 premarked for identification as Government's Exhibit 40. That
24 reads:
25 It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the
2495
1 parties that if called as a witness an official of the United
2 States Department of State would testify as follows:
3 1. The following persons killed in the bombing of
4 the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998,
5 were "internationally protected persons" within the meaning of
6 Title 18, United States Code, section 1116. Those persons are
7 Julian Leotis Bartley, Sr., and Prahbi Gutpara Kavaler.
8 It is further stipulated that this stipulation may be
9 received as a government exhibit at trial.
10 The government would move the admission of
11 Government's Exhibit 40.
12 THE COURT: Received.
13 (Government's Exhibit 40 received in evidence)
14 MR. BUTLER: The next stipulation has been previously
15 marked as Government's Exhibit 42 for identification. That
16 reads:
17 It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the
18 parties that if called as a witness officials from various
19 relevant United States government agencies would testify as
20 follows:
21 1. The following persons killed in the bombing of
22 the American Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya, on August 7, 1998,
23 were officers or employees of the United States government
24 engaged in the performance of official duties within the
25 meaning of Title 18, United States Code, section 1114. Those
2496
1 names are:
2 Jesse Nathaniel Aliganga; Julian Leotis Bartley, Jr.;
3 Julian Leotis Bartley, Sr.; Chrispine Bonyo; Jean Rose Dalizu;
4 Lawrence Ambrose Gitau; Molly H. Hardy; Kenneth Ray Hobson;
5 Hindu Omar Iddi; Tony Kihato Irungu; Geoffrey Mulu Kalio; Joel
6 Gitumbo Kamau; Lucy Nyamira Karigi; Prabhi Gutpara Kavaler;
7 Joseph Kamau Kiongo; Arlene Bradley Kirk; Peter Kabau
8 Macharia; Francis Watoro Maina; Fred Yafes Maloba; Cecilia
9 Mamboleo; Mary Louise Martin; Lydia Mukiri Mayaka; Francis
10 Ndungu Mbugua; Dominic Kithuva Musyoka; Francis Kibe Njuguna;
11 Francis Mbogo Njuige; Vincent Kamau Nyoike; Francis Olewe
12 Ochito; Ann Michelle O'Connor; Maurice Okatch Ogola; Sherry
13 Lynn Olds; Edwin Opiyo Omori; Lucy Grace Onono, Evans Kibiro
14 Onsongo; Eric Abuor Onyango; Caroline Sella Opati; Rachel
15 Magasia Pussy; Uitamlal Thomas Shah; Fahat Sheikh; Phaedra
16 Vrontamis, Adams Titus Wamai.
17 It is further stipulated and agreed that this
18 stipulation may be received in evidence as a government
19 exhibit at trial, and the government would now offer this
20 stipulation as Government's Exhibit 42.
21 THE COURT: 42 received.
22 (Government's Exhibit 42 received in evidence)
23 MR. BUTLER: Your Honor, the government would like to
24 publish Government's Exhibit 814, which has been previously
25 entered into evidence by stipulation, and request that we be
2497
1 able to pass this around to the jury. This was the watch
2 recovered at the site of the American Embassy on August 7,
3 1998.
4 THE COURT: Yes.
5 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the next witness is going to
6 require us to move some items around.
7 THE COURT: How long will that take?
8 MR. KARAS: Five or 10 minutes.
9 THE COURT: So the suggestion is that we break for an
10 early lunch?
11 MR. KARAS: That is the implicit suggestion.
12 THE COURT: All right. When you have had a chance to
13 see the watch that is being passed around, then you can return
14 to the jury room, and we will recess until 2:00.
15 (Luncheon recess)
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2498
1 A F T E R N O O N S E S S I O N
2 2:00 p.m.
3 (In open court; jury not present)
4 THE COURT: I understand the same rulings with
5 respect to cross-examination of the ambassador that obtained
6 with respect to Ambassador Bushnell apply.
7 MR. BAUGH: Your Honor, I think I made a formal
8 objection. Yes, I understand the same as per your memorandum
9 we are not to cross-examine on any of the issue that are
10 purely mitigation issues.
11 THE COURT: Purely mitigation or --
12 MR. BAUGH: Or security.
13 THE COURT: -- or security.
14 MR. BAUGH: That's correct, your Honor. And we
15 object to that. As an aside, at our next break can we have an
16 extra five minutes so I can go through a stipulation with my
17 client.
18 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, I would also like to put on
19 the record after Ambassador Lange we would request that the
20 next three witnesses not be sketched.
21 THE COURT: Very well.
22 (Continued on next page)
23
24
25
2499
1 (Jury present)
2 THE COURT: The government may call its next witness.
3 MR. KARAS: Thank you, your Honor.
4 At this time I'd like to read from what has been
5 marked for identification as Government Exhibit 53 which is a
6 stipulation.
7 It is hereby stipulated and agreed by the parties as
8 follows:
9 1. Government Exhibit 84 is an excerpt of a
10 videotape of the immediate aftermath of the bombing of the
11 American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania on August 7, 1998.
12 The video was taken by an official from the Tanzanian Criminal
13 Investigation Division.
14 2. Government Exhibits 1103-A through 1103-U are
15 photographs of the exterior of the American Embassy in Dar es
16 Salaam, Tanzania and the surrounding area taken on August 7,
17 1998 or on days soon after the bombing. These photographs
18 fairly and accurately depict the scenes photographed.
19 3. Government Exhibit 1100 is a three-dimensional
20 model which accurately depicts the American Embassy in Dar es
21 Salaam, Tanzania and the immediate surrounding area as it
22 looked before the bombing on August 7, 1998.
23 4. Government Exhibits 1101 and 1102 are drawings of
24 the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and the
25 surrounding areas drawn to approximate scale. The drawings
2500
1 accurately reflect the distance between the embassy and
2 certain areas indicated in the drawings.
3 5. Government Exhibits 1104A through 1104H are
4 photographs of the interior of the American Embassy in Dar es
5 Salaam, Tanzania after the bombing on August 7, 1998.
6 6. Government Exhibits 1105A through 1105B are
7 photographs of the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
8 taken before the bombing.
9 At this time, your Honor, we move Government Exhibit
10 53 and the exhibits just referenced therein into evidence.
11 THE COURT: Received.
12 (Government's Exhibits 53, 84, 1103A through 1103U,
13 1100, 1101, 1102, 1104A through 1104H, 1105A through 1105B
14 received in evidence)
15 MR. KARAS: If we could display 1103A which is a
16 photograph of the interior of the embassy.
17 THE COURT: Don't you want to call the witness before
18 you do that?
19 MR. KARAS: At this time, your Honor, the government
20 calls Ambassador John Lange.
21 JOHN E. LANGE,
22 called as a witness by the government,
23 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
24 DIRECT EXAMINATION
25 BY MR. KARAS:
2501
1 Q Good afternoon, Ambassador.
2 A Good afternoon.
3 Q Ambassador, where are you currently posted?
4 A I am the United States Ambassador to the Republic of
5 Botswana in Southern Africa.
6 Q How long have you been in the foreign service, sir?
7 A I entered the foreign service in March of 1981, twenty
8 years.
9 Q Before you became the United States Ambassador to Botswana
10 where were you posted?
11 A I was posted in Dar es Salaam Tanzania as the deputy chief
12 of mission, the deputy to the Ambassador, in other words, but
13 when there was a superior, when there was no Ambassador such
14 as my first nine months at post when I was in the country I
15 was known as the charge d'affaires, the person in charge.
16 Q Were you the deputy chief of mission in Dar es Salaam,
17 Tanzania on August 7, 1998?
18 A Yes, I was the deputy chief of mission and at that time
19 serving as the charge d'affaires.
20 Q Which means there was no Ambassador at that time, is that
21 correct?
22 A Exactly.
23 Q Now, can you tell us the morning of August 7, 1998 what
24 time you arrived to work?
25 A I arrived to work at the normal time about 8 o'clock.
2502
1 Q And at approximately 10 a.m. where were you?
2 A At 10 a.m. I had scheduled a meeting in my office, the
3 DCM's office with seven other people to talk about political
4 economic and commercial issues of concern to the US government
5 in Tanzania. It was a normal weekly meeting.
6 Q And when that meeting began were there any interruptions?
7 A Well, 10 a.m. every Friday we had our normal alarm drill
8 in which the marine in this case was Corporal Johnson, and
9 announced over the loudspeaker system through the embassy that
10 we would be hearing alarms for a fire, for a bomb or a
11 terrorist attack, and then the conclusion was the all clear
12 signal.
13 So we, at the beginning of the meeting we all
14 patiently waited to listen to these four different sirens
15 going on as part of a normal drill and then we began the
16 meeting.
17 Q And were there any other interruptions during the meeting?
18 A Well, the big one which was at 10:39 in the morning when a
19 huge explosion occurred outside of the embassy.
20 Q Can you describe what you first heard at 10:39 a.m.
21 A I heard maybe a second or something of deep rumble and
22 then the explosion hit the office that we were in. I was
23 sitting with my back to the other wall. I had one person who
24 was actually an unpaid intern working for the State Department
25 that summer, a law student from UCLA on my left, and other
2503
1 employees, American and Tanzanian employees, six others on my
2 side and in front of me, and I was with my back to the other
3 wall, and the glass which was a high window blew in over my
4 head and landed on the people in front of me.
5 Q And what happened after the glass blew in over your head?
6 A Well, it's the kind of thing that, I now kind of
7 understand what it's like when the parachute doesn't open and
8 your entire life flashes in front of your eyes, because I can
9 still see that glass going in slow motion in a sense, even
10 though it was in a split second, landed on the people.
11 We had something called mylar or shatter resistant
12 window film. It's a plastic coating on the windows. So that
13 it didn't break into the small shards that would have been far
14 more deadly, but it ended up landing then in chunks on the
15 people in front of me and caused some injuries, but nothing
16 serious on the people in front of me. And I myself was not
17 injured, because the window was a high one. It went over me.
18 Q Did you hear any other sounds after the glass broke?
19 A What happened was after that, after the glass landed
20 there, then we started hearing explosions going on outside of
21 the building, and there was of few seconds, every five, ten
22 seconds or something like that it went on for about five
23 minutes, it seems to me in terms of continual explosions. We
24 don't know what it was at that time if we were being fired
25 upon or what.
2504
1 Q And while you were hearing these explosions what did you
2 do?
3 A Well, I was the charge d'affaires and I kind of thought to
4 myself, I'm in charge here, I better figure what the hell
5 happened, pardon my language. And so I decided, so I got up
6 to go out and luckily or judiciously the head of the political
7 econ section just to my right said, stay down, because there
8 were these continual explosions that we were hearing and we
9 don't know if it was gun fire. So what we did was, so I did
10 was kind of lay low then and go out to try to see what had
11 happened.
12 Q Where did you go?
13 A I went out of the office past my secretary's office. She
14 was all right. All the people that I had seen there had, no
15 one had more than superficial injuries. So I went out past
16 them, and then went downstairs from the third floor to the
17 second floor, and went to what we call post one. That's where
18 the marine headquarters is in each embassy.
19 Q What did you do when you got to post one?
20 A When I got to post one and off to my right the regional
21 security officer a man name John DeCarlo, who had just arrived
22 there about ten or days two week earlier, called me over, and
23 he said: John, come here we've got to get Lizzy out of the
24 rubble.
25 Q What did you do next?
2505
1 A I went over there. As well as the consular officer who is
2 actually a retired State Department foreign service officer,
3 and he had come back to get a little extra money, and he was
4 just working for us for a month or two, and he and I both went
5 over to what we called the community liaison office where we,
6 and at that point John DeCarlo, John Edwards, the counsular
7 officer, and I were around Lizzy Slater our communicator who
8 was buried in rubble up to about her chest in that office.
9 Q And what did you do when you got to Ms. Slater?
10 A We got there and kind of carefully took the rubble off of
11 her. It tended to be in chunks because at that point the
12 community liaison office, which was on the side nearest where
13 the explosion had occurred, a big gaping hole in the wall, big
14 concrete wall and the gaping hole, and so we had these chunks
15 of concrete that she was buried in and she hadn't moved since
16 the explosion. She just was immobilized there.
17 We took it off of her, and once we took all of it off
18 of her, she did have a leg injury, but she said, no, I'm okay
19 I can move.
20 Q When you described the gaping hole could you now see
21 outside the building?
22 A Yes.
23 Q And after you were able to free Ms. Slater, what did you
24 do next?
25 A After that John DeCarlo and I, and John Edward decided to,
2506
1 that we would leave the building, and the way that a lot of
2 people had left in the front steps was also the site of the
3 explosion there was a lot of rubble.
4 In fact, you could see the hands and the hand prints
5 with blood on them as people who had tried to make their way
6 down the steps walking over the rubble. And, instead, DeCarlo
7 said, let's take the back exit. So we went to the back and
8 went out of the building that way.
9 Q What happened when you got outside?
10 A We got outside and saw a man who was totally blackened,
11 charred body probably in the last seconds of life, and he was
12 on his back kind of groaning, and he was clearly not going to
13 be living for long. And I have no medical training, and so I
14 saw him and others who were going to be coming to secure them,
15 so I then made a turn to go out the compound area from a
16 different angle.
17 Q And where did you go from there?
18 A Well, we, the people had been escaping from the compound
19 through the, on to the main boulevard called Ali Hassan Mwinyi
20 and on that boulevard there was no entrance or exit, so what
21 happened was there were ladders that people had put in this
22 emergency situation -- by the way, oh, I forgot something
23 excuse me. I forgot about my phone call.
24 Q Okay. You want to tell us about the phone call?
25 A Yes. What happened was when, after the community liaison
2507
1 office when we helped get the rubble away from Lizzy Slater,
2 then, and this is something that every State Department
3 foreign service officer always have to remember, you always
4 have to tell Washington.
5 What happened was I went to the phone at post one and
6 called the operations center of the State Department in
7 Washington which goes for 24 hours a day. I remembered the
8 number. The phones kind of amazingly were working and I just
9 called the number directly. There is always somebody there.
10 They answer, at least it seems like a half dozen or dozen
11 people always working there. And so what I, when I remember
12 telling the person identifying myself as the charge d'affaires
13 in Dar es Salaam. I said, there's been a huge explosion. I
14 didn't know the nature of the explosion, but there's been a
15 huge explosion here. A lot of damage to the building. You
16 won't be hearing from me for a while but I just wanted to let
17 them know.
18 Q Was this before or after you were able to free Ms. Slater
19 from the rubble?
20 A This was after. From the time we freed Ms. Slater then I
21 made the phone call. I at that point looked at my watch for
22 the first time really and it was I think it was about 10:50 in
23 the morning which was about ten, about 11 minutes after the
24 bomb had gone off.
25 Q Now, I believe you were telling us that you are making
2508
1 your way around where people were going over a ladder?
2 A Yes. And I made my way then over to where that ladder was
3 because this was by now then maybe 12 or 15 minutes after the
4 explosion, and people had gone out by going up this ladder and
5 then down.
6 And I got there and the French Ambassador whose
7 embassy was across the street was there to greet me, and to
8 shake my hand. And we shook hands through the grate as a sign
9 of his support and respect and offered to help, and then I
10 went over the ladder and down on the other side.
11 Q What did you do when you got down on the other side?
12 A Well, he was wanted to be as helpful as possible and he
13 said, come over to my embassy and you can work, do work out of
14 there on a temporary basis.
15 And so I went over there and his embassy actually
16 suffered significant damage also, but it was, it wasn't
17 anywhere near as bad as ours. It was across this big
18 boulevard. And then I stood in his embassy for about a minute
19 thinking, what am I going to do here? I had already called
20 Washington and there wasn't much purpose to stay there. So
21 then I came back on to the street.
22 Q And when you got back to the street did there come a time
23 that you saw assistance arriving, medical assistance?
24 A It was kind of amazing to me how people just converged and
25 we had fire engines arriving, we had ambulances arriving. The
2509
1 local, we didn't have an American doctor. We had a locally
2 hired doctor who came to help out as well as some of the
3 nurses who worked for the, I think two nurses who worked for
4 the Peace Corp. They all came to help out. They came, they
5 went. They did the reverse of what I had done. They went
6 over the ladder to get into the compound to try to help
7 people.
8 The Marines came. Now, we had Corporal Johnson in
9 the embassy at the time of the explosion. He was the one who
10 had been assigned to post one. But the other Marines lived in
11 a house a little over a half a block away, and as soon as they
12 heard the explosion they quickly got their clothes on and got
13 ready to come, and they came.
14 And they came to the embassy, and still rings in my
15 ears, and I've told every Marine I see now the same story and
16 for those Marines working in Gabarone with me, one of, I still
17 remember the regional security officer coming up to me on the
18 street to say: Sir, the Marines have secured the building.
19 And there was something even in this chaos which was
20 fire engines, smoke that earlier explosions, et cetera with
21 all that going on, there was something comforting about the
22 idea that in this chaos we still had been able to secure the
23 building. The Marines had secured the outer perimeter so that
24 there was a bit of controlling on our part at that point.
25 Q And after you learned this, did there come a time that
2510
1 people gathered at your house that day?
2 A Well, the other thing the security officer told me was
3 that based on our emergency action plan, as we called it, that
4 he said the primary evacuation point in case of an emergency
5 was the USAID mission director's residence next to the
6 embassy. He said that was badly damaged. We could not go
7 there. So we had to go to the secondary evacuation point
8 which was my residence.
9 Q Did people gather there?
10 A Yes. I hadn't remembered that my house was the secondary
11 evacuation point, but I said, of course, go there. And I also
12 said we could use the ambassador's residence which was empty
13 at the time. We had no Ambassador. And it turned out that I
14 didn't know it then, but the ambassador's residence was
15 damaged also. So, basically, people converged on my
16 residence, the deputy chief of mission residence.
17 Q And what happened when you got to your house?
18 A When I got to my house by then people had, my wife had let
19 people in. I remember walking in the door, and there was just
20 kind of a not chaotic scene, but just a lot of people milling
21 around, and just trying to determine what to do next.
22 And I saw my wife Alejandera and just hugged her and
23 this emotional moment of, you know, what's going on here? And
24 just kind of incredible thing, but I didn't, we couldn't talk
25 about it because there was just so much that had to be done.
2511
1 I had a two-story residence, and there was a guest
2 bedroom on the first floor. So we used that as a makeshift
3 first aid health unit, and our embassy local doctor, and a
4 doctor from the French Embassy who actually had been injured
5 himself, kind of set up a first aid station there with the
6 nurses.
7 Some people had to be taken to the hospital but they
8 were helping those who didn't require hospitalization.
9 Q Aside from providing medical assistance, was anything else
10 done to help the victims that day?
11 A The, well, one of the first things we had to do was to
12 account for those who for all of our staff. So I asked two of
13 our local employees we called them foreign service nationals,
14 two of our Tanzanian employees, to put together a list and go
15 through all of our Tanzanian staff.
16 And then and I have to say this is one of the things
17 I'm most proud of. I asked our consular officer the one who
18 had helped take the rubble off of Lizzy Slater with me, I
19 asked him to go around to all of the Americans and find out
20 their status, find out the name of their contact person in the
21 United States, relative or whoever, and the phone number. And
22 so he did that. And then he read to the operations center of
23 the State Department, because we used our one phone line then
24 to call the, it's a continual open line to the State
25 Department operations center. He read to them this
2512
1 information, the name of the person to call, the name of the
2 employee and family, and the phone number.
3 And then they made calls and the purpose was so that
4 the people in the United States, my mother included, heard
5 that from the State Department that the bombing had gone on
6 but your son is all right, or your spouse or whatever the case
7 may be, rather than have them wake up in the morning at 7 in
8 the morning and turn on the Today Show and find out there had
9 been this bombing in Dar es Salaam and have everybody panic
10 and get a heart attack or whatever.
11 So it was, I don't know why I did that, I still kind
12 of amazed at it, but it's part of being a career foreign
13 service officer, you just deal with different kinds of
14 emergencies, nothing this tragic or huge, but we just decided
15 to do that and that he made the calls.
16 Q Were similar efforts made on behalf of the Tanzanian
17 victims?
18 A When our two local employees, the secretary and the
19 administrative section and the head of our personal section
20 Tanzanian, they put together their list, and they made all of
21 their contacts as best they could. The thing is a lot of our
22 Tanzanian employees did not have home phones, and things, so
23 it was more difficult to try to make those contacts, but
24 everybody was working as hard as they could on that.
25 Q Now, Ambassador, did there come a time that you went back
2513
1 to the embassy in the same day?
2 A I remember, I can't, there were so many things that had
3 gone on then in those hours after this that I can't remember
4 the specific timetable for all of it, but I remember I believe
5 there it was my first time back when I did go back and I came
6 in from the side, and I remember walking on the street where I
7 had just been in fact on the morning of August 7th going to a
8 normal day of work, looking at a normal street and I walked on
9 this street, and there was rubble all over the street, like
10 maybe half inch of broken glass, and concrete and other things
11 all rubble, and all the cars on both sides of the parked cars
12 were all scorched black.
13 In fact, that was what those explosions that I
14 mentioned hearing earlier were really not from additional fire
15 that we were receiving, but it was actually, or shooting, it
16 was actually exploding tires and gasoline tanks, things such
17 as that.
18 So we ended up coming, so I ended up coming there and
19 I really, I tend not to show a lot of emotions, but I really
20 kind of choked up there just to think what had happened
21 because you could see this all this blackness, and then this
22 big gaping hole in a couple of the rooms in the embassy, big
23 black charred building, just destruction all over.
24 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may Ambassador Lange step
25 down and approach the model?
2514
1 THE COURT: Yes.
2 MR. KARAS: Ambassador, if you would.
3 (Witness left stand)
4 Q Ambassador, before you is what is marked in evidence as
5 Government Exhibit 1100. Can you tell us generally if you
6 recognize it?
7 A Oh, yes, it's the prebombing embassy.
8 Q The model of what it looked like?
9 A Yes.
10 Q Can you describe some of the, and I take it is the white
11 building there in the middle?
12 A Yes, it is.
13 Q Can you describe some of the buildings around the embassy?
14 A Well, this was the USAID mission director's residence.
15 She was actually on starting her home leave and wasn't in that
16 day. This was the Nigerian Embassy which also ended up being
17 badly damaged.
18 Q That's just for the record to the northwest of the
19 American Embassy?
20 A Yes. This was the Algerian Embassy. This was the embassy
21 and it's a lot of photographs taken of this one. This was an
22 embassy officer residence, the consular officer's residence,
23 and just terribly damage in the front. His family was on rest
24 and recuperation travel at the time, so they were not there.
25 Q That's just across the secret?
2515
1 A Yes. This was another embassy officer's residence.
2 Q Was that building damaged as well?
3 A Yes, everything all around. At my residence you could see
4 some paint that had come off the top of the ceiling and kind
5 of from the vibrations and had landed on the floor and the
6 residence was a mile away.
7 Q Now, with respect to the American Embassy can you
8 generally point in the area in the building where your office
9 was?
10 A I was in my office on that side (indicating). The bomb
11 had happened here on Laibon (indicating). And I was in my
12 office on this side. So I, when the glass blew in from there
13 it was not coming in from the side of the embassy where the
14 explosion itself had occurred. The Ambassador's office which
15 was vacant at the time was right over here, and was more on
16 the side of where the, was on the side where the explosion
17 occurred.
18 Q So your office faced to the southwest?
19 A Yes.
20 Q And can you tell us where within the structure you found
21 Liz Slater under the rubble?
22 A Yes. From my office then I went through this, I have to
23 say I hated this building, it was built in 1960 and had all
24 these crooks and crannies and narrow stairways, and these two
25 different buildings here. And so we went, and it was down
2516
1 this way where Lizzy Slater was and it was right here
2 (indicating). This was in fact the hole that I looked through
3 that was, when I was picking the rubble off of her was that
4 open area was right here (indicating).
5 Q That's in the northern part of the two buildings facing on
6 Laibon?
7 A Yes.
8 Q And do you see just to the east of the embassy there a
9 small white building that's got fences around it?
10 A This one?
11 Q Can you tell us what that was?
12 A That was the guard house and these are the guards who are
13 paid the equivalent of about a hundred dollars a month in
14 Tanzania because of the prevailing wages there.
15 And they are there to screen people coming in. And
16 this guard house was so close to the, where the explosion
17 occurred that was just a devastated building. Concrete walls,
18 but still it was just very badly damaged, and several of the
19 guards died.
20 Q Now, you mentioned that there were people climbing over a
21 fence. Can you point generally in what direction that was?
22 A Yes. After I opened or took the rubble off of Lizzy, with
23 the other two gentlemen and made the phone call which was
24 inside there, then came out this back entrance, and went this
25 way and then it was I shook hands with the French Ambassador
2517
1 through a grate that looked like that and then went over that
2 on to this boulevard here.
3 Q And that boulevard is Ali Hassan Mwinyi?
4 A Yes.
5 MR. KARAS: Thank you, Ambassador, you can resume the
6 stand.
7 (Witness resumed stand)
8 Q Now, if we could display Government Exhibit 1105A.
9 Ambassador, can you tell us what that is a picture of?
10 A That's the US Embassy in Dar es Salaam Tanzania before the
11 bombing.
12 Q And if we could display 1105B, that picture.
13 A That's from a different angle. It's taken from Laibon
14 Road, and, in fact, this is the street that I said I was
15 coming up on when I saw all the cars scorched and black. This
16 I was walking up this way to the left on the photo, but that's
17 also the embassy before the bombing.
18 Q And if we could display 1103I.
19 A Well, that's me down at the bottom there. It's also our
20 Marines who by that time had been able to put on their proper
21 gear and had weapons, because we didn't know if there would be
22 another attack.
23 And that that's the explosion where you can see the,
24 the room that had the community, that was used as the
25 community liaison officer's office where Lizzy Slater our
2518
1 communicator was buried in rubble is the middle floor there,
2 the second floor. And that's where I had gone in to help get
3 the rubble off of her.
4 The floor above that with the gaping hole was the
5 administrative officer's office, but he was not in the office
6 at the time of the bombing. He had left about ten minutes
7 earlier to go to another meeting.
8 Q And if we could display 1103J.
9 A Another scene of the damaged embassy. You're seeing it
10 from, just see the two different buildings because I said this
11 odd construction, and you had the two different buildings
12 there, the one closer to where the explosion occurred which is
13 marked in red on that model is the one that you see more badly
14 damaged here.
15 Q You see what appear to be cement fence posts?
16 A Yes.
17 Q What was there before August 7?
18 A I believe that was a solid concrete wall.
19 Q If we could display 1103R. Can you tell us what that is?
20 A That's the consular officer's residence that I referred to
21 on the model. He was with his family on R and R travel out of
22 the country at the time. So they were not in the building.
23 Q That's the house that you referred to as directly across
24 the street on Laibon?
25 A Yes, and this is taken probably from the top of the
2519
1 embassy looking down that way.
2 Q 1103T, please.
3 A That I believe is the back corner of the embassy where we,
4 the public tended not to go, and to the left of that it would
5 be the Nigerian Embassy on the other side of the wall.
6 Q If we can display 1104E. Can you tell us what is
7 Ambassador?
8 A That's the Ambassador's office. I was as I said, the
9 charge d'affaires, but since my permanent title while I was
10 stationed in Dar es Salaam was as the deputy chief of mission
11 pending the arrival of the Ambassador, I was, I did not move
12 into the Ambassador's office.
13 So this is an office that was vacant at the time, but
14 it normally would be the Ambassador's office and as I had
15 noted on the model it was the windows on the left at the top
16 left are the ones that were on the side of where the building
17 where the bomb went off.
18 Q If we could display 1104F.
19 A This was the nicest room in the embassy. It was our
20 ceremonial entrance where we had some nice chairs and sofas,
21 and that, and it wasn't where the normal public entrance was
22 for consular purposes, for people who needed visas and
23 passports, but, instead, it was the entrance that we used when
24 we had dignitaries who came to visit, and it was on the side.
25 It was not on the side of where the explosion occurred.
2520
1 Q Finally, 1104H. Can you tell us what area that is?
2 A Yes. This is the executive office suite. In fact, my
3 office was through the door on the right there. This is where
4 my secretary was sitting at the time and US government clocks
5 run on batteries, and they seldom seem to all have the same
6 time, but every clock in the building stopped as soon as the
7 explosion occurred, and this one you can see what the time was
8 on this one.
9 Q What time is it on that clock?
10 A I would judge that as 10:39.
11 MR. KARAS: Thank you, Ambassador. I have no further
12 questions.
13 MR. BAUGH: No questions, your Honor, pursuant to the
14 Court's order.
15 THE COURT: Thank you, Ambassador. You may step
16 down.
17 (Witness excused)
18 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the government calls Tina
19 Mbodilu.
20 JUSTINA MBODILU,
21 called as a witness by the government,
22 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
23 DIRECT EXAMINATION
24 BY MR. KARAS:
25 Q Good afternoon.
2521
1 A Good afternoon.
2 Q Where were you born?
3 A I was born in Tanzania.
4 Q And where do you live now?
5 A I live in Tanzania.
6 Q Can you tell us how you're employed?
7 A I'm employed at the American Embassy as a translator in
8 the political department.
9 Q For how long have you worked at the US Embassy there?
10 A Next month will make it nine years.
11 Q Can you tell us if you were working at the United States
12 Embassy in Dar es Salaam on August 7, 1998?
13 A Yes, I was.
14 Q Can you tell us about any meetings you had scheduled that
15 morning?
16 A We were to have a meeting in the office of the deputy
17 Ambassador or the DCM, the deputy in charge of mission at 10
18 o'clock to prepare for the coming or the arrival of the
19 Ambassador to come to Dar es Salaam at the embassy.
20 Q And the DCM at that time was Mr. Lange?
21 A Yes.
22 Q Where was that meeting held?
23 A The meeting was held in his office.
24 Q At approximately what time did that meeting begin?
25 A The meeting began at 10 o'clock.
2522
1 Q After the meeting began were there any interruptions?
2 A Yes. At about 10:30, 10:35 the meeting was interrupted by
3 an explosion.
4 Q Can you tell us what you first heard?
5 A I was facing a window where I was seated, and as I was
6 facing the window, actually I think the meeting was about to
7 end, I suddenly saw what was like a flash of lightning for a
8 split second, and what sounded like a thunder storm, but it
9 went on for about 15 seconds. It was I've never heard
10 anything like it before. It was a huge explosion, it was
11 something like a booooom.
12 Q Then what happened?
13 A Well, after that, first of all, I thought I was dreaming,
14 because I never felt anything like that before. The sound
15 seemed to go through my chest. And at the end I found myself
16 on the floor, and what I remember seeing is that the whole
17 floor was full of glass. And when I looked around me, people
18 were bleeding, and that's when I started asking, what
19 happened, and I remember someone saying that maybe a tanker
20 had exploded.
21 Q And then what happened?
22 A Well, one of my colleagues who was at the meeting he was a
23 Tanzanian working in the commercial department, he tried to
24 get up, and I think it was Mr. Lange who said, get down,
25 because none of us knew what was happening.
2523
1 But he was badly hurt and he started to panic, and
2 some people got up, because we were looking for towels to stem
3 the bleeding, and a lot of people had blood on their shirts.
4 I remember my hair was in braids and I had pieces of glass in
5 my braids, and my dress was torn, because the glass which came
6 into the room -- I remember the glass coming into the room as
7 if someone had taken some sand and thrown it into the room.
8 That's the last thing I remember before shielding my face.
9 So what I remember after that was just the silence,
10 and people saying to get down under the windows, because we
11 didn't know what was going on.
12 Q Did people leave the room immediately?
13 A No. It took us, it took us about 15 minutes, 12 minutes,
14 15 minutes. We would have left earlier, but outside we heard
15 what we thought was gun fire, and when we wanted to leave the
16 room someone said, don't go out, because we thought whoever
17 had done that was now firing at us.
18 But we left because there was some wiring in the room
19 and the wiring, the smoke had started to come, so we were
20 afraid that we would get burned inside the room, so, finally,
21 I think it was the commercial officer who said, we must get
22 out of this room, otherwise, we'll be burned alive. So we
23 decided to take our chances out there with whoever was
24 probably shooting at us.
25 Q And where did you go?
2524
1 A I can't remember too clearly. I know that we start to get
2 out of the room. It took us some sometime because blocks of
3 cement had fallen. At this time I was eight months pregnant.
4 So I remember two people were able to squeeze through a narrow
5 hallway. I wasn't.
6 So I had to go back. And I remember behind me was
7 any colleague who was bleeding, he couldn't see his way. So
8 he was hanging on to my shirt behind me. So we went through a
9 narrow hallway, I can't remember, because it was a classified
10 section where Mr. Lange's office was. So I had to go there
11 under escort anyway, so I wasn't familiar with my
12 surroundings.
13 So basically we'd go through narrow hallways trying
14 to look for a way out. Then the regional security officer he
15 appeared from the top of a stairway and he said, come up this
16 way. You can get out from this way. So what we basically did
17 was climb over blocks of cement, try to go under hanging
18 pieces of wood and things like that, and we got out.
19 Q And what happened when you got out of the building?
20 A When I got out of the building I met other embassy people,
21 at the embassy grounds, and we were all told to go to an area
22 behind the embassy where we, when we usually have drills,
23 there is a place where we go behind the embassy, but when we
24 all went over to that place, then we heard what sounded like
25 gun fire, and we all started running back to where we come
2525
1 from.
2 Q And where did you go from there?
3 A Where I went there was a big wall, and outside the wall
4 was a busy street. So someone came up with a ladder. So I
5 think about three of us climb the ladder. On the other side
6 was a colleague of mine that I used to work with, and his
7 hands were like this (indicating) at the top of the wall, no,
8 on the other side of the wall. So on this side we climbed on
9 the ladder, we went over the wall, and on to his palms, then
10 we, on to his knee, and then we stepped down, and it was a
11 policeman on the road, and he stopped the truck. I can't
12 remember who the truck belonged to. But about four or five of
13 us got into the truck and it took us to hospital.
14 Q Who else got in the truck with you?
15 A The community liaison officer. Her name was Cynthia
16 Kimball, and a colleague of mine a Tanzanian, she was the
17 personal assistant, and Patricia Wagner, an American official,
18 and Patricia Connell, she was political officer's secretary.
19 Q What, if any, injuries did you suffer that morning?
20 A Because what I did when I saw the glass coming in the
21 split second I covered my face, so I got cuts to my arm, and I
22 had cuts to my face on this side, and I didn't realize it
23 then, but later on if I were to call someone if I hold the
24 ear, the phone on in side I couldn't hear the person. But if
25 I put the phone on this side I could hear the person. But it
2526
1 took about six months for the ear to come back to normal.
2 MR. KARAS: Thank you. I have no further questions.
3 MR. BAUGH: No questions.
4 MR. RUHNKE: No questions.
5 THE COURT: Thank you, ma'am. You may step down.
6 (Witness excused)
7 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the government calls
8 Elizabeth Slater.
9 ELIZABETH MARIE SLATER,
10 called as a witness by the government,
11 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
12 DIRECT EXAMINATION
13 BY MR. KARAS:
14 Q Good afternoon, Ms. Slater. Can you tell us how you're
15 employed?
16 A I work for the Department of State. I'm information
17 management specialist.
18 Q For how long have you worked for the State Department?
19 A I've been working there for almost twenty years.
20 Q And what is your current post?
21 A I work in the American Embassy.
22 Q Can you tell us where you were posted in August of 1998?
23 A I took up a new post in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. I
24 arrived there on the 5th of August.
25 Q Were you at the embassy on August 7th?
2527
1 A Yes, I was.
2 Q And did you have any meetings scheduled that morning?
3 A Yes, I did. I had a meeting scheduled welcome to Dar es
4 Salaam briefing.
5 Q For the community liaison officer?
6 A That's correct.
7 Q What time was that meeting scheduled for?
8 A For 10:30.
9 Q Where did that meeting take place?
10 A It was in her office.
11 Q Can you tell us what happened when the bomb went off?
12 A (Pause) It just went pitch black.
13 Q Do you remember what happened after that?
14 A There was a feeling, a strange smell kind of a oily gritty
15 feeling in the air, and in the building the walls were on top
16 of me and my colleague.
17 Q Beverly Kimball?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Was there anyone else in the room aside from you and
20 Ms. Kimball?
21 A No. Not at the time that the bomb went off. No, it was
22 the two of us.
23 Q After the wall stopped collapsing what happened?
24 A I kept on seeing her. She was, she was okay, I couldn't
25 see her. It was pitch black. And when things cleared, it
2528
1 cleared up and I was looking at the sky. I asked her if she
2 was okay. She was screaming, kept screaming and screaming,
3 and John DeCarlo, the security officer, came into the room and
4 he tried to pull me out and I asked him to leave me alone and
5 to help get Cynthia out. She was hysterical screaming.
6 Q Did he get Ms. Kimball out?
7 A Yes. He managed to get her out and then he came back to
8 try and lift me out, but they couldn't move me. I was pinned
9 down with rubble.
10 Q Did anybody else arrive to help?
11 A Our charge d'affaires, John E. Lange, came into the
12 office and John Eastwood who was the consular officer, WAE. I
13 don't know what that stands for. He came into the office and
14 they tried to get the things off of me and this gunnery
15 sergeant, Gunny Kimball, came in and he managed to just push
16 this bookcase off of me and I was able to stand up at that
17 point.
18 Q Were you able to leave the room?
19 A Yes. I did. There was another gentleman there, Jim Owen
20 who we left the room, the building together. We left the
21 office and started walking out the building together.
22 Q How did you get out of the building?
23 A We went down the front stairwell which would have been a
24 normal entrance to the embassy. Went down towards where the
25 front gate security guards were.
2529
1 Q Did you make it outside?
2 A Yes, but coming down the stairwell it was all kinds of
3 body parts. We found one of my colleagues who was injured and
4 in the stairwell, and she wasn't moving. We stopped and asked
5 her. She told us, we got to get out of here. It's not safe.
6 She was reluctant to move. She kept saying, I can't find my
7 shoes. I can't leave without my shoes. And we were, we had
8 to get out. I gave her my shoes, said, let's go, let's get
9 out. And we got out the front of the building, and that's
10 when I saw that it must have been a bomb.
11 Q Were you able to make it out of the embassy compound?
12 A We moved around the side of the building going off to the
13 right. Somebody had called us in that direction and we went
14 around the side of the building, and I remember seeing a
15 tanker truck sitting there, and I didn't really want to go
16 where the tanker truck was because it's not safe. But we
17 moved. I asked my other colleague standing there if we could
18 move a little bit away from the tanker truck maybe be in a
19 safer location. And we finally got here. He didn't have
20 any -- he died.
21 Q Ms. Slater, were you able to get to the ambassador's
22 residence?
23 A Yes. We had got over the embassy wall and were taken in
24 little taxis to Ambassador Lange's house.
25 MR. KARAS: Thank you. Your Honor, I have no further
2530
1 questions.
2 MR. RUHNKE: We have no questions.
3 MR. BAUGH: No questions.
4 THE COURT: Thank you, ma'am. You may step down.
5 (Witness excused)
6 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the government calls Edward
7 Rutahesherwa.
8 (Continued on next page)
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2531
1 EDWARD MATTHEW RUTAHESHERWA,
2 called as a witness by the government,
3 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
4 DIRECT EXAMINATION
5 BY MR. KARAS:
6 Q Afternoon, sir.
7 A I am fine.
8 Q Can you tell us where you were born.
9 A I was born in Kalgara.
10 Q Is that in Tanzania?
11 A Yes, it's Tanzania.
12 Q Have you lived in Tanzania all your life?
13 A Yes, I have been in Tanzania.
14 Q What do you do for work, sir?
15 A I am a security guard.
16 Q For how long have you been a security guard?
17 A Eight and a half years.
18 Q For what company have you been a security guard?
19 A Alternate Security Guard.
20 Q Were you working as a security guard near the American
21 Embassy on August 7, 1998?
22 A Yes, I was at work.
23 Q During that time, was that your normal assignment?
24 A Yes. I went there on time.
25 Q What time of day did you begin work?
2532
1 A I start 7:00 in the morning.
2 Q What was your specific duty that day?
3 A My job was to receive the visitors and to register the
4 cars which comes out and in.
5 Q Was there a specific post number assigned to that duty?
6 A Yes, I have a section that I was working at.
7 Q What area of the embassy were you in charge of guarding?
8 A I was working front of the embassy, in the area called
9 Roman I.
10 Q Roman I?
11 A Yes.
12 Q Was that along Laibon Road?
13 A Yes, that's the street called Laibon.
14 Q Did there come a time that morning that you tried to take
15 a break for tea?
16 A Yes, it's around 10:30.
17 Q Did somebody come to relieve you?
18 A Yes, someone came and I went to have my tea.
19 Q Where did you go to have tea?
20 A I went to the section Roman II.
21 Q Where is that in connection with the embassy building?
22 A Behind of the American Embassy.
23 Q What happened when you were behind the American Embassy?
24 A After going and getting water to get my tea and getting
25 all my stuff to eat, and I heard a bomb, explosion.
2533
1 Q What did you do when you heard the bomb?
2 A I fell down, I lay down for my security, and after I saw
3 other people running towards me, and I run away and I tried to
4 climb the wall.
5 Q Were you able to climb the wall?
6 A Yes, and the time I reach on top of the wall, someone
7 pushed me forward and I was able to go to another side.
8 Q Where did you go once you got on the other side of the
9 wall?
10 A After that, I crossed the street and I went to near the
11 French embassy, and then I went around to see what is
12 happening.
13 Q What did you see when you went back?
14 A After I reached there, I saw the person who relieved me
15 during my break, he is laying down on the floor, and the body
16 is laying on the floor.
17 Q Did your colleague survive that morning?
18 A The person who relieved me, he didn't survive, and his
19 name was Bakari Lumbo.
20 Q When you saw him, did he ask you to do anything?
21 A Yes, he told me to take him out from there and to take him
22 near to the shadow.
23 Q Did he say why he wanted you to take him to the shadow?
24 A Because he is feeling very abnormal.
25 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may I approach the witness?
2534
1 THE COURT: Yes.
2 Q Mr. Rutahesherwa, I place before you what is marked
3 Government's Exhibit 1170 and ask you to take a look at it.
4 Can you tell us what that is, sir?
5 A This is the person who relieved me.
6 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, we offer Government's Exhibit
7 1170.
8 MR. RUHNKE: No objection.
9 THE COURT: Received.
10 (Government's Exhibit 1170 received in evidence)
11 Q Mr. Rutahesherwa, did your brother also work for Alternate
12 Security?
13 A Yes, he is one of the security guys also.
14 Q Was he on duty that day in front of the American Embassy?
15 A Yes, he was very close.
16 Q Do you know where he was when the bomb went off?
17 A He was at the receiving area.
18 Q Do you know where that is in connection with the entrance
19 of the embassy?
20 A Yes, I know where he was.
21 Q Can you tell us exactly where he was?
22 A Yes, but I can show where he was.
23 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may the witness step down?
24 THE COURT: Yes.
25 Q Please, sir, would you like to step down.
2535
1 Sir, if you want, show us where your brother was
2 working that morning.
3 A He was at this area.
4 Q Is that a guardhouse there on the front, on Laibon?
5 A This is area where the radio is and to welcome people to
6 want to get visa, anyone who wants to come to the embassy.
7 Q Mr. Rutahesherwa, did your brother survive that morning?
8 A Yes, he survived, and the person who relieved me, he was
9 near to that place, my brother.
10 Q On that day, how many Alternate Security guards were
11 assigned to guard the American Embassy?
12 A If I can mention by name, I can tell how many was.
13 (Swahili names not interpreted)
14 Q How many is that, sir?
15 A I was not counting, I was just mentioning names.
16 THE INTERPRETER: If you want him to repeat it, do.
17 Q Of the colleagues you mentioned, how many of them died,
18 sir?
19 A (Swahili names not interpreted)
20 Q Is that five?
21 A Yes.
22 (Continued on next page)
23
24
25
2536
1 MR. KARAS: Thank you, sir. I have no further
2 questions.
3 THE COURT: Any questions?
4 MR. BAUGH: No questions of this gentleman.
5 THE COURT: Thank you. You may step down.
6 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the next witness is going to
7 require us to bring out some other evidence and this might be
8 a good time for a break.
9 THE COURT: We will take our afternoon break.
10 MR. BAUGH: Extra five minutes, your Honor?
11 THE COURT: Yes, an extra five minutes.
12 (Jury excused)
13 (Recess)
14 THE COURT: Bring the jury back in?
15 MR. KARAS: Yes, sir. Your Honor, I am going to read
16 a stipulation before.
17 (Jury present)
18 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, at this time I would like to
19 read a stipulation marked for identification as Government's
20 Exhibit 56.
21 It is hereby stipulated and agreed by and between the
22 parties as follows:
23 1. If called as witnesses, special agents from the
24 Federal Bureau of Investigation would testify that between
25 August 9, 1998, and August 22, 1998, they found the items
2537
1 listed below in the vicinity of the United States Embassy in
2 Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as indicated on the tags attached to
3 each item. Each of these items was later photographed by FBI
4 personnel and each photograph is a fair and accurate depiction
5 of each item. The list of seized items and the corresponding
6 photograph are as follows:
7 Government's Exhibits 1110 and 1110P, 1111, 1111P,
8 1112, 1112P, 1113, 1113P, 1114, 1114P, 1115, 1115P, and it
9 proceeds from 1116 to 1126 and 1115P to 1126P.
10 2. FBI agents and other personnel also recovered
11 from the American Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, over 200
12 fragments from what have been identified by an industry expert
13 as oxygen and acetylene cylinders. Each of these items was
14 later photographed by FBI personnel and each photograph is a
15 fair and accurate depiction of each item. A partial list of
16 seized cylinder fragments and a corresponding photograph is as
17 follows:
18 It is 1130 through 1144 and 1130P through 1144P.
19 3. FBI officials transported the items referred to
20 in paragraphs 1 and 2 from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to
21 Washington, D.C. via airplane, and brought them to the
22 forensics laboratory at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.
23 4. The cylinder fragments were analyzed and broken
24 into composition groups. Government's Exhibits 1146 through
25 1164 are fair and accurate photographs of the composition
2538
1 groups as determined by an employee of the FBI.
2 5. Government's Exhibits 1165 and 1166 are an
3 acetylene and oxygen cylinder, respectively. They were
4 purchased from a hardware store in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in
5 1998 by an FBI agent as exemplars to be used for comparison
6 purposes.
7 Your Honor, at this time we offer Government's
8 Exhibit 56, the stipulation, and the exhibits mentioned
9 therein.
10 THE COURT: Received.
11 (Government's Exhibits 1110 through 1126, 1110P
12 through 1126P, 1130 through 1144, 1130P through 1144P, 1146
13 through 1166 received in evidence)
14 LEO WEST,
15 called as a witness by the government,
16 having been duly sworn, testified as follows:
17 (Continued on next page)
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2539
1 DIRECT EXAMINATION
2 BY MR. KARAS:
3 Q You work with the FBI, sir?
4 A Yes, I do.
5 Q What do you do for the FBI?
6 A My position is that of a supervisory special agent in the
7 laboratory division, and my particular assignment is as an
8 explosives and hazardous device examiner.
9 Q Can you tell us the training you received to become an
10 examiner?
11 A Yes. The training involved a period of what we call an
12 apprenticeship or internship in the unit, wherein you would
13 work with senior qualified examiners learning the various
14 technical and theoretical aspects about explosives, explosive
15 devices, explosives manufacturing, device composition,
16 component identification, and various other aspects of the
17 position.
18 During that period of training you would be involved
19 in making examinations of various devices and components,
20 learning how to operate various pieces of equipment that are
21 used to assist in the examination of those components, writing
22 reports to the contributors of the components that explains
23 the examinations and findings of your examinations. Also
24 involved in the training period was a number of visits to
25 explosive manufacturers to study the processes of
2540
1 manufacturing explosives.
2 If possible we also would try to go to various
3 bombing crime scenes to have hands-on training at the scene in
4 terms of learning about how the bombs function, assisting in
5 the processing of the crime scene, collecting evidence from
6 the crime scene, and even conducting field examinations of the
7 evidence that was found at these crime scenes.
8 Q Can you tell us about your formal education.
9 A My formal education consists of some background in
10 forensic science and also in public administration. Most
11 recently, I graduated from the George Washington University
12 with a master's in forensic science, and previously I had
13 attended Indiana University, where I had earned a bachelor's
14 degree in forensic studies and master's degree in public
15 administration.
16 Q Have you attended seminars and conferences in the field of
17 forensics?
18 A Yes, I have.
19 Q You mentioned that you had been to crime scenes. Can you
20 tell us approximately how many bombing crime scenes you have
21 participated in in investigating?
22 A If I were to include our training seminars as well as
23 actual bombing crime scenes involving criminal activity, I
24 would venture probably in the neighborhood of 150 over the
25 course of my career.
2541
1 Q Among those 150 crime scenes, did some of them involve
2 suspected vehicle bombs?
3 A Yes, a number of them did.
4 Q Can you give us some examples?
5 A Most recently, in 1993 I was involved in the investigation
6 of the World Trade Center here in New York, and again in 1995
7 I was assigned to a similar crime scene in Riyadh, Saudi
8 Arabia. That involved the bombing of the office of personnel
9 management of the Saudi Arabian National Guard. Also in 1995
10 I had worked at the Oklahoma City bombing crime scene in the
11 spring of '95. In 1996 I had been involved in the
12 investigation of the TWA 800.
13 Q If I could stop you there, Agent West, were you dispatched
14 to Dar es Salaam to investigate the bombing of the American
15 Embassy in that city?
16 A Yes, I was.
17 Q When was it that you arrived in Dar es Salaam?
18 A I arrived on Sunday, August 9 of 1998.
19 Q What was your particular role in arriving in Dar es
20 Salaam?
21 A My role was to serve as the coordinator or leader of the
22 FBI forensic team, and specifically with a mind to
23 coordinating the collection of evidence and managing the
24 bombing crime scene.
25 Q Can you tell us about the first evidence collection
2542
1 efforts you made on August 9?
2 A Yes. After we arrived and were taken through the initial
3 processing there at the airport in Dar es Salaam, we proceeded
4 directly to the embassy and arrived there in late afternoon on
5 Sunday, the 9th. At that time, due to the fact that it was
6 rather late in the day and we knew that we had just a short
7 amount of daylight left, we made a conscious decision to take
8 care of some, what we considered priority issues first, most
9 importantly of which was to collect residue samples of what we
10 hoped to find in terms of explosive residues. In addition to
11 that, we took some measurements of the size of the crater left
12 by the bomb. We also did some very preliminary survey of the
13 immediate surroundings of the bomb scene.
14 Q The next day did you conduct a site survey of the area?
15 A Yes, we did. The following morning we had come to the
16 crime scene and set about what we consider a methodical site
17 survey, wherein we walk around the area of the bomb blast to
18 try to determine the extent of the damage and the distances
19 wherein evidence might have traveled, that is, fragments of
20 the device or fragments of the vehicle that carried the
21 device.
22 As we walked that area and assessed the damage and
23 the pattern of evidence collection, we would gradually work
24 our way back in towards the actual immediate area of the bomb
25 blast, and then do a thorough review or assessment of the
2543
1 damage to the embassy and the immediate buildings surrounding
2 the embassy.
3 Q Did you make any observations about the damage to
4 buildings as you worked farther from the embassy?
5 A Yes, we did.
6 Q What were those observations?
7 A As you moved further and further away from the crater or
8 what we would call the site of the blast, you saw a lessening
9 amount of damage, and this is something that we know from our
10 experience is a natural occurrence in bombing cases.
11 Q What kind of damage did you see to the buildings
12 surrounding the embassy?
13 A To the buildings most immediately close to the embassy, we
14 saw varying degrees of serious damage to the roof areas, quite
15 a bit of glass breakage, some cracked walls. Depending upon
16 the distance from the bomb crater, again we would see a lesser
17 amount, in relative terms.
18 Q Did you walk around and make any observations about the
19 exterior of the American Embassy?
20 A Yes. To the embassy itself it was apparent that the
21 greatest damage was to the east side or east wall, which would
22 be the side closest to and facing the site of the blast. In
23 parts along the annex area of that embassy there was almost
24 total destruction, severe damage to the support structure, the
25 flooring, the roof area, the walls, and so on.
2544
1 Turning the corner on to the north side of the
2 embassy, we started to see a lessening amount, still heavy
3 damage, severe damage, but a lessening amount as we moved
4 further along the north wall away from the site of the blast.
5 On the opposite sides -- that would be the south wall
6 or south side of the embassy and the west side of the
7 embassy -- we saw, again, much less damage. For instance, we
8 saw no stripes from the fragments of the bomb or damage to the
9 vehicle. The damage on those two sides consisted primarily of
10 glass breakage and some cracked walls, some unhinged windows
11 or doors, and so on. But again, as we observed from the other
12 side, the further away from the center of the blast or site of
13 the blast, the lesser amount of damage.
14 Q With respect to the damage to the east side of the embassy
15 that faced Laibon Road, what particular damage did you see to
16 the structure of the embassy?
17 A As I mentioned, that was the area of most severe damage.
18 The area that is considered the annex, which again would be
19 that area closest to the crater, was virtually destroyed. The
20 walls had been blown in, supporting beams had been cracked and
21 broken open. There were numerous objects that had been thrown
22 into that area, that is, into those rooms from the blast,
23 vehicle parts, truck parts and so on, what we would consider
24 total destruction.
25 Q Did you have a chance to walk through the inside of the
2545
1 embassy?
2 A Yes, I did.
3 Q What kind of damage did you see to the interior of the
4 embassy?
5 A Again, if we were to consider it as a pattern, what we
6 would see on those outermost walls on the east side facing the
7 blast and also on the north side, those outermost rooms would
8 have had very severe damage.
9 In the chancery, or the older part of the embassy, we
10 saw, again, a great deal of broken glass, cracked walls, doors
11 were unhinged. We have, as may have been explained, cement
12 window louvers that lined that front wall. A number of those
13 had been broken and cracked. Then as we moved away from that
14 and walked down the north corridor, that is, along the north
15 wall, we saw a similar set of circumstances, wherein those
16 that were closest to what we call the northeast corner again
17 suffered very heavy damage. Ceiling tiles had fallen in,
18 cracked windows, cracked walls, furniture overturned, much the
19 same as along that east wall, that front wall of the embassy.
20 As we went further back away from the outermost
21 walls, that is, what you would consider more interior areas of
22 the embassy, then that type of damage lessened. We found
23 still a fair amount of overpressure damage wherein the blast
24 effect known as the pressure wave had broken glass and
25 unhinged doors, knocked some things off the walls, blown
2546
1 things off of desks and so on. We didn't see the heavy damage
2 from fragmentation and the heat and some of the other effects
3 of the blast we saw in those outermost walls.
4 As you moved to the furthermost corner, what you
5 would consider the southwest corner of the embassy, then we
6 had really a much milder damage, again consisting of this
7 overpressure with some broken windows and ceiling tiles that
8 had fallen down and so on.
9 So it's a typical phenomenon we see where the further
10 away from the blast you move the less damage you would see.
11 Q If we could display Government's Exhibit 1102.
12 Agent West, you described earlier a plan to recover
13 evidence. Can you tell us a little bit more about the plan
14 you devised to recover evidence near the American Embassy in
15 Dar es Salaam.
16 A What we had devised in terms of a plan was one that we
17 typically use in such large-scale bombing matters, by
18 assigning certain grids, or sections to be searched to our
19 search teams. Fortunately, we had three experienced search
20 teams that were provided to us from our Dallas, New York and
21 Boston field offices. These teams, I knew from personal
22 experience of having worked with them, had been to bombing
23 scenes such as Oklahoma City, the World Trade Center, Saudi
24 Arabia and so on, and I knew that they had not only the
25 training but the actual experience at working crime scenes,
2547
1 and knew what to look for.
2 So what we had done was made a decision to start at
3 the outermost areas where we found evidence, and during that
4 first day of site surveys and so on, we determined that we had
5 evidence out as far as 600 yards from the embassy.
6 So we had some maps made up and took and made
7 boundaries such as you see here displayed, and gradually
8 started at that outermost edge, that 600 yard demarcation, and
9 worked our way in in a systematic fashion, with each of the
10 three evidence response teams assigned to a particular area,
11 and over the course of successive days we would gradually
12 close those areas off as they had been searched and worked to
13 reduce our search area.
14 Q Agent West, 1102, is that a diagram of the site of the
15 American Embassy?
16 A Yes, it is.
17 Q While you were recovering evidence from the outside of the
18 perimeter working in, did you also make efforts to recover
19 evidence from within and immediately around the bomb crater?
20 A Yes, we did. Again, we had enough personnel that we were
21 able to do several things at once, and we assigned a small
22 team of several experienced bomb technicians to work at the
23 crater itself and begin excavating that crater and looking for
24 evidence that would have been found in the immediate vicinity
25 where the bomb went off.
2548
1 Q If we could display 1103M, as in Mary.
2 Can you tell us what 1103M is, Agent West.
3 A Yes. That's a photograph that depicts the bomb crater
4 itself and the view looking at the annex and marine -- I
5 shouldn't say marine, excuse me -- the guardhouse at the north
6 driveway entrance to the embassy.
7 Q Can you tell us what criteria you were using to select the
8 pieces of evidence you were going to take back home?
9 A Yes. The criteria is to differentiate between fragments
10 or objects that are found which exhibit little or minor
11 explosive damage as compared to those which exhibit a greater
12 amount of explosive damage, and certain signature features
13 that we recognize as showing that this particular piece or
14 fragment had been in close proximity to or actually part of
15 the device. That really was our primary criteria. Because of
16 the scale of the scene and the quantities of fragments and
17 debris throughout that large search area, we knew that we had
18 to stick with just the more relevant pieces that had been at
19 close proximity or part of the device.
20 Q Agent West, did you have a chance to analyze the pieces
21 that were selected back in the laboratory in Washington, D.C.?
22 A Yes, I did.
23 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, may Agent West step down from
24 the witness stand?
25 THE COURT: Yes, go ahead.
2549
1 Q Agent West, would you step down, please.
2 Sir, if you could start with the big metal piece here
3 that is marked as Government's Exhibit 1124. Can you tell us
4 what that piece is?
5 A This piece is a fragment of the gate that had been
6 parting, or blocking the northern driveway. Frankly, we are
7 not sure which part, whether it was a top piece or bottom
8 piece. However, it is definitely from the gate area and had
9 been found approximately 600 feet away from the blast site in
10 the roof of a building to the north of the embassy.
11 Q Agent West, are you familiar with the term high explosive?
12 A Yes, I am.
13 Q Can you tell us what kind of evidence there is of high
14 explosives in items that are in the middle of a high explosive
15 when it is detonated?
16 A Yes. There are certain characteristics that are common to
17 objects that are in close proximity to a high explosive when
18 it detonates, and some of these characteristics are called
19 pitting and cratering. Many times there will be a thinning
20 and shredding of metal. It will often form a knife-like edge.
21 This is all due to the amount of energy and pressure that is
22 imparted on the object at the time that the bomb goes off.
23 For instance, on this piece you can see a number of
24 what we would call pits or craters. This is very typical as
25 far as damage caused by a high explosive. The curling and
2550
1 rolling of metal, in addition to the tearing of metal, is also
2 very common. A number of these explosives are designed
3 specifically for a shattering and a tearing. They are used in
4 demolition work and so on, and so they often exhibit this type
5 of pattern on metal objects.
6 Q Thank you. If you want to place that down.
7 Did you also collect vehicle pieces in the vicinity
8 of the embassy?
9 A Yes, we did.
10 Q Are some of those pieces before you here?
11 A Yes, they are.
12 Q If we could start with a piece on your right, I believe
13 1126?
14 A Yes.
15 Q Can you tell us about the damage to that piece.
16 A Yes. This is a portion of the left rear axle housing.
17 The axle itself is contained within this. This is merely the
18 housing. This would be the top side or view of this housing,
19 and this would be part of what is called the banjo area. That
20 is kind of a round circular area in the middle between the
21 left and the right side of the axle housing.
22 In terms of the type of damage, as you asked, what we
23 can show here, of course, is, you know, severe twisting and
24 bending of the metal. You can see the sharp knife-like edges
25 and the tearing in particular here along the surface area, and
2551
1 you can see how the explosive force had flattened what was
2 once more a cylindrical shape. We can see how it has been
3 flattened and pushed downward as the explosives pushed down on
4 the piece, if you can see it from the side view.
5 Q What does this tell you where the bomb was in connection
6 with that rear axle?
7 A What that indicates is that the explosives were above the
8 axle because the explosives were pushing the detonation in a
9 downward motion.
10 Q Where was that piece found in the vicinity of the embassy?
11 A This particular piece was found across the road --
12 according to our tag here, this was found in the area near 33
13 Laibon Road, which would be directly across and somewhat to
14 the north. This is 33 Laibon Road, and this piece was found
15 in the vicinity of the residence here.
16 Q You are referring to the model that is marked as
17 Government's Exhibit 1100?
18 A Yes.
19 Q Do you see a crankshaft on the table?
20 A Yes. Actually, two fragments.
21 Q Can you tell us what exhibits those are, please.
22 A The larger of the two is Exhibit 1122, and that is a
23 portion of the engine crankshaft. The smaller of the two is
24 Exhibit 1123, also a portion of the crankshaft.
25 Q What can you tell us about the damage to those two pieces?
2552
1 A Again, what we see is fairly typical of metal that has
2 been in close proximity to an explosive device, in particular
3 a large quantity of high explosives where you've got very
4 sturdy metal objects that are severely deformed and bent. We
5 see a cracking and shearing of pistons, which again is
6 something that is indicative of close proximity to an
7 explosive force. The smaller of the pieces, I think, very
8 easily illustrates that. You see how the arm is bent on that.
9 So is there is evidence of extreme force being
10 applied here.
11 Q The crankshaft, is that in the front part or the rear part
12 of the vehicle?
13 A That would be at the front of the vehicle within the
14 engine block.
15 Q Using the model, can you tell us where those pieces were
16 found?
17 A These two pieces were found in the area to the south of
18 the crater. One was found a shorter distance away than the
19 other. Frankly, I would have to look to see exactly what the
20 distances were, but the pieces, as I say, were both found to
21 the south side of the crater.
22 Q Do you see what looks like any wheel rims on the tables?
23 A Yes.
24 Q Do you want to pick one out, please.
25 A I'll take the light one.
2553
1 Q For the record, what exhibit number is that?
2 A This one is 1119.
3 Q What can you tell us about the damage to that piece?
4 A Again, we see evidence of severe force and ripping and
5 tearing being applied to it. As you can imagine, the wheel
6 has been severely deformed. We've got pitting and cratering
7 here. You've also got thing and shred shredding of the metal,
8 some knife-like edges. Severe deformation, which again is
9 typical of exposure to a high explosive blast.
10 Q Did you make any efforts to identify what type of vehicle
11 was comprised of these parts?
12 A Yes, we did.
13 Q What did you do?
14 A Fortunately, one of the pieces that we found, a key piece,
15 was a section of the right front frame rail, and within this
16 right front frame rail we have the vehicle identification
17 number, and the vehicle identification number allowed us to
18 actually determine the specific make and model of the vehicle,
19 which we determined to be a 1987 Nissan Atlas. Upon getting
20 that information we then were able to make contact with the
21 Nissan Corporation and ask for assistance of some of their
22 engineers to help us review the various pieces we collected
23 and determine what was from a Nissan Atlas and what was not.
24 Q For the record, you are holding Government's Exhibit 1116?
25 A Yes.
2554
1 Q Now, with respect to the pieces that you've described can
2 you tell us whether or not those pieces were consistent with
3 being part of the bomb delivery vehicle?
4 A Yes, they are. They exhibit the type of damage which was,
5 again, based on our training and experience, indicate that
6 they were in close proximity to or actually carried the
7 device.
8 MR. KARAS: Thank you, Agent West. If you'd like to
9 resume the witness stand.
10 (Witness resumed stand)
11 Q Were there any representatives of Nissan that came to
12 review the pieces that you had found from the crime scene in
13 Dar es Salaam?
14 A Yes, there were.
15 Q And were they able to identify parts that they felt were
16 from a Nissan vehicle?
17 A Yes, they did.
18 Q And what did you do after they identified the parts as
19 being from a Nissan vehicle?
20 A Well, once we were able to determine what had come from a
21 Nissan vehicle and in particular what was consistent with or
22 unique to a Nissan Atlas, we assembled these pieces in what we
23 felt was the relative position they would have been in had
24 they been part of an actual vehicle, in other words, to form
25 sort of a skeletal structure of the various parts.
2555
1 And at that point then we were able to photograph and
2 actually document where these pieces were located on that
3 vehicle, or where they should have been located on that
4 vehicle.
5 Q I'd like to display to the witness and to counsel only
6 exhibit 1175A.
7 Agent West, can you tell us what 1175A is?
8 A Yes, 1175A is a photograph that was taken of this
9 reconstruction or skeletal view of the parts, and the parts
10 are placed in their approximate position as they would be
11 originally found on a Nissan Atlas.
12 MR. KARAS: At this time, your Honor, we offer
13 Government Exhibit 1175A.
14 THE COURT: Received.
15 (Government's Exhibit 1175A received in evidence)
16 Q On which side of this picture, the left or the right, are
17 the pieces that belong to the front part of the vehicle?
18 A Looking at the photograph the left side where the majority
19 of pieces are represents the front engine compartment and cab
20 area of the Atlas. The right-hand side would be the rear
21 portion of the Atlas.
22 Q Now, in addition to reviewing vehicle parts, did you also
23 analyze metal fragments?
24 A Yes, we did.
25 Q And in particular can you tell us whether or not you
2556
1 identified any fragments that belonged to cylinders?
2 A Yes, we found a number of those.
3 Q Based on your review of those pieces what, if anything,
4 can you tell us about the relationship between those pieces
5 and the bomb?
6 A From our examination of the various cylinder fragments we
7 were able to determine that those cylinders had been either in
8 close proximity to or actually part of the bomb.
9 Q And are those pieces sitting at the end of the table
10 closest to you, Agent West?
11 A Yes, there's a representative sample facing me on the
12 table.
13 Q Now, based on your site survey and your review of the
14 pieces found at the vicinity of embassy, did you reach any
15 conclusions about the nature of the explosion in front of the
16 American Embassy?
17 A Yes. In terms of describing the explosion we determined
18 and I was able to say that it was a large quantity of high
19 explosives that had been carried and/or concealed within a
20 Nissan Atlas truck.
21 Furthermore, incorporated into that explosive device
22 were a quantity of both high pressure and low pressure gas
23 cylinders which may or my not have contained some of the
24 explosives.
25 Q If we could display Government Exhibit 1101, please.
2557
1 Based on where some of the vehicle pieces were found
2 and the damage to those pieces do you have a conclusion about
3 the general orientation of the bomb delivery vehicle?
4 A Yes, I do. Given the location of these pieces and the
5 fact that most of the front end pieces are what we consider
6 like the right front frame section with the vin number, the
7 engine block, the crankshaft and other engine area or front
8 end pieces being located to the south of the embassy, and the
9 rear pieces, such as the rear axle housings and some of the
10 rear wheels being found to the north of the embassy, it was
11 fair for us to say that the vehicle had been placed in a
12 southbound or southwesterly attitude toward the embassy. That
13 is, at the northern driveway gate.
14 Q Agent West, I believe there is a pen-like object there.
15 If you can draw an arrow as to generally which direction the
16 front part of the truck was facing?
17 A In general terms given the location of the evidence and
18 where it was recovered the truck would have been -- try and
19 draw it on here this way -- the truck would have been facing
20 somewhat southbound. Is that copying?
21 MR. KARAS: That's fine. That's okay. May I
22 approach the witness, your Honor?
23 THE COURT: Yes.
24 Q Agent West, I've placed before you Government Exhibits,
25 what has been marked for identification as exhibit 1305 and
2558
1 1355. Can you tell us what those are?
2 A Yes, these are the remains of two electric detonators or
3 electric blasting caps that we had examined in the laboratory
4 following their recovery at some search sites in the Dar es
5 Salaam area.
6 Q Just so we're clear, these are not detonation devices from
7 the crime scene?
8 A That's correct.
9 MR. KARAS: I have no further questions.
10 MR. RUHNKE: No questions, your Honor.
11 MR. BAUGH: No questions.
12 THE COURT: Mr. Ricco, on behalf of the defendant
13 Odeh.
14 CROSS-EXAMINATION
15 BY MR. RICCO:
16 Q Can we have placed on the screen Government Exhibit 1102,
17 please.
18 Good afternoon, Agent West.
19 A Hello.
20 Q I notice in 1102 you indicated that there was a perimeter
21 drawn here and that you have successive circles drawn; is that
22 correct?
23 A That's correct.
24 Q At the center is the point of detonation?
25 A Yes.
2559
1 Q The reason that you have the circular effect is because
2 the shock waves from the explosion expand outward at 360
3 degree direction, isn't that correct?
4 A Not particularly. We do know that the shock wave does
5 radiate in a 360 degree direction, but we chose the circular
6 method because of the nature of the terrain. We felt that
7 that type of a search pattern working in a circular fashion
8 and gradually moving in would be better than say a grid
9 pattern, a rectangular or square grid pattern. That's how
10 that was chosen.
11 Q I'd like to take a step back.
12 First, the shock wave of the explosion after
13 detonation travels at 360 degrees, isn't that correct?
14 A Yes.
15 Q All right. And you went to the outside of the perimeter
16 and then worked your way in, correct?
17 A Yes.
18 MR. RICCO: All right. Now, can you please come down
19 to Government Exhibit 1100 with the Court's permission?
20 THE COURT: Yes.
21 (Witness left stand)
22 MR. RICCO: Judge, I'll try to do it without the hand
23 held mic.
24 Q Agent West, if you can go over to the diagram that would
25 be most helpful.
2560
1 Can we have 103R placed on the screen.
2 Now, 1103R is a building that was to the north of the
3 embassy and that's indicated on this diagram by this
4 structure?
5 A Actually, it was more easterly than north.
6 Q Okay. All right. But that building that we see in that
7 photograph is indicated by this object here.
8 A Yes.
9 Q Okay. Now, you said to us that you found the axle, the
10 rear axle in that yard?
11 A One of the axle fragments I believe was found in that
12 yard.
13 Q Can you just point to the jury so they can see on that
14 diagram where that area is again?
15 A The general area as I was informed was this area here
16 (indicating).
17 Q And then you told us that one of the crank shafts to the
18 vehicle was found in a southern direction further down the
19 street on Laibon Street?
20 A Correct.
21 Q Can you point to the jury so they can see on the diagram
22 where that was found?
23 A Well, not knowing the exact distances I know that one was
24 found down near the Marine guard post southbound, and another
25 was found somewhat closer, but both were in a southerly
2561
1 direction.
2 Q Okay. Now, is it fair to say that parts were found in a
3 360 degree angle from the point of detonation?
4 A Yes.
5 Q And damage was caused in a 360 degree angle from the point
6 of detonation, isn't that correct?
7 A Yes.
8 Q Now, when the bomb detonates there is a term called
9 fragment velocity, isn't that correct?
10 A I'm not familiar with that specific term.
11 Q But certainly the pressure of the bomb has velocity?
12 A Yes.
13 Q The energy has velocity?
14 A Yes.
15 Q And that energy in high explosives is at a very height
16 rate of feet per second, isn't that correct?
17 A Yes.
18 Q That can be from three thousand to 11 thousand feet per
19 second with high explosives, isn't that correct?
20 A Actually, it be even faster than eleven thousand feet per
21 second.
22 Q Just so the jury gets a sense, energy that moves at that
23 high rate of speed will take metal like this, heavy metal like
24 this axle, twist it, churn it, flatten it or blow it right out
25 of its way, isn't that correct?
2562
1 A Yes.
2 Q If there is a human who's seated in that truck when a high
3 explosive of this nature explodes, that human body would
4 probably be totally destroyed by the force of the energy from
5 detonation, isn't that correct?
6 A That's very possible.
7 Q Now, the parts that you were able to recover here are
8 heavy parts primarily from the chassis and the engine, isn't
9 that correct?
10 A Yes.
11 Q Were you able --
12 THE COURT: Can the witness resume the stand?
13 MR. RICCO: Yes, he can, your Honor.
14 (Witness resumed stand)
15 Q Were you able to recover any of the parts of the Nissan
16 that related to, let's say, its outside shell, that is the
17 mouldings or the fenders of the vehicle?
18 A We found what we believe to be two segments or fragments
19 of door, both fragments of the right door and the left door.
20 Q Is it safe to say that most of the outer shell of the
21 vehicle was destroyed by the energy effect of the bomb?
22 A That's possible. It may be that it was so small that we
23 just didn't find it.
24 Q And so what was once a solid piece of metal, would have
25 been reduced down to very small pieces for the outer shell,
2563
1 isn't that correct?
2 A That would be the case, yes.
3 Q And that stays true given the level of damage to the more
4 heavier pieces of the vehicle, isn't that right?
5 A Yes, that would follow.
6 MR. RICCO: Your Honor, I have no further questions
7 of Agent West. Thank you very much.
8 THE COURT: Anything further of this witness?
9 MR. KARAS: No, your Honor.
10 THE COURT: Thank you. You may step down.
11 (Witness excused)
12 THE COURT: We've got five minutes. Anything else?
13 MR. KARAS: No.
14 THE COURT: All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's
15 just review. Tomorrow full day, Thursday when we break for
16 lunch we'll break for the day, and then we'll resume on
17 Monday. You have a good evening.
18 (Continued on next page)
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2564
1 (Jury not present)
2 THE COURT: What is the schedule for tomorrow?
3 MR. KARAS: Your Honor, the next witness is the
4 Nissan representative who will briefly describe the parts.
5 Then there will be about ten or 11 Tanzanian witnesses who
6 will testify. And then we'll follow that, if we get to it,
7 with some search agents, and then after that we will get to
8 some lab experts.
9 THE COURT: All right. You wanted to see me with
10 something off the record?
11 MR. BAUGH: No, your Honor, it's been resolved.
12 Thank you.
13 THE COURT: It's been resolved.
14 MR. BAUGH: Yes, it has.
15 THE COURT: All right. Then we're adjourned until
16 tomorrow.
17 MR. RICCO: Your Honor, we had to put something on
18 ex-parte. It will take two seconds.
19 (Page 2565 sealed)
20 (Trial adjourned to 10 a.m., Wednesday, March 14,
21 2001)
22
23
24
25
2566
1
2 INDEX OF EXAMINATION
3 Witness D X RD RX
4 MICHAEL ANTICEV............2420
5 MICHELLE MARIE CARR........2429
6 SUSAN MARIE MITCHELL.......2434 2441 2443 2444
7 MITCHELL L. HOLLARS........2444 2458 2466 2467
8 2468 2469
9 KELLY MOUNT................2470 2482 2492 2493
10 JOHN E. LANGE..............2500
11 JUSTINA MBODILU............2520
12 ELIZABETH MARIE SLATER.....2526
13 EDWARD MATTHEW RUTAHESHERWA.2531
14 LEO WEST....................2538 2558
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
2567
1 GOVERNMENT EXHIBITS
2 Exhibit No. Received
3 901 through 929 ............................2423
4 969, 971, 973, 975, 977, 979 and 981 .......2432
5 992A and B .................................2434
6 962, 963, 964, 966, 967, 968 and 976 .......2436
7 960C .......................................2437
8 982 and 986 ................................2438
9 983, 987 and 989 ...........................2440
10 991A and B .................................2440
11 931, 994, 789, 697, 584 and 711 ............2449
12 913-LP .....................................2452
13 696LP ......................................2458
14 844, 787, 788, 956, 993 and 571 ............2480
15 41 and 813 .................................2494
16 40 .........................................2495
17 42 .........................................2496
18 53, 84, 1103A through 1103U, 1100,
19 1101, 1102, 1104A through 1104H,
20 1105A through 1105B....................... 2500
21 1170 .......................................2534
22 1110 through 1126, 1110P through 1126P,
23 1130 through 1144, 1130P through 1144P,
24 1146 through 1166........................... 2538
25 1175A ......................................2555
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