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http://cbsnews.cbs.com/now/story/0,1597,151674-412,00.shtml

Ressam Enters Plea In Seattle Court
Indictment Cites Unnamed U.S. Targets
One Man Remains At Large

SEATTLE
 (AP) An Algerian caught with explosives at Port Angeles has pleaded
innocent in Seattle to plotting to blow up buildings.

Ahmed Ressam entered the plea through his lawyer in federal court under
heavy security.

Ressam's attorney then asked the judge to move the trial to San Francisco or
Los Angeles. He was told to submit a summary of the news coverage in those
cities at a hearing next Wednesday. Meanwhile, the trial date was postponed
to July 10. Ressam waived his right to a speedy trial.

A grand jury filed a terrorism conspiracy indictment against two Algerians
last week, alleging for the first time that explosives smuggled into
Washington state were going to be used to blow up buildings or other U.S.
targets.

The nine-count indictment, which supersedes previous charges, accuses Ressam
and Abdelmajid Dahoumane of conspiring since 1998 "to destroy or damage
structures, conveyances or other real or personal property within the United
States."

It does not disclose specific targets or how investigators had discovered
the plot stretched back at least a year. It does not allege any property was
actually damaged.

Ressam, 32, was arrested Dec. 14 at Port Angeles, Wash. The trunk of his
rental car contained a substance used to make the military-grade C-4
explosive and a "nitroglycerine equivalent" in two glass jars. He was
detained as he left a ferry from Victoria, British Columbia.

Dahoumane remains at large, accused of being an accomplice to Ressam.

The two men had shared a $36 per night Vancouver, British Columbia, motel
room in the 25 days before Ressam's arrest, during which time they either
made or had in their possession the explosives, according to a Canadian
arrest warrant for Dahoumane.

At least four other Algerian nationals and one woman married to an Algerian
are being investigated in the explosives plot. One man was to meet Ressam in
Seattle, drive him where he needed to go and give him money, Canadian police
said Thursday.

That man, Abdel Ghani Meskini, 31, pleaded innocent Thursday in New York
City to charges of providing and concealing support for Ressam.

Meskini was ordered to go to Seattle by Montreal shopkeeper Mokhtar Haouri,
another Algerian national, a Canadian police investigator alleged at a
Montreal bail hearing for Haouri on Thursday.

Meskini returned to New York after Ressam was arrested Dec. 14, Royal
Canadian Mounted Police investigator Serge Haineault testified.

Haouari and Meskini were indicted earlier this month by a U.S. federal grand
jury in Manhattan for violations of the federal law against providing
support to terrorists.

They are accused of conspiring to transfer fake or stolen U.S. immigration
identity cards and passports of other countries, including Canada and
France, as well as using fake credit, bank and charge cards over the last
year to buy $1,000 or more worth of merchandise. Their indictment did not
say what they are accused of buying.

Meskini divulged under American police questioning that Haouri is a member
of the Islamic Salvation Front, the Algerian political party that was poised
to win elections before the army intervened in 1992, the RCMP investigator
testified.

Haouri also is a member of the party's armed faction, the GIA, which has
been fighting a guerrilla war against the army and is accused of committing
atrocities against civilians, Haineault said.

Ressam has been linked by investigators to the GIA, which has targeted
foreigners in Algeria and France. Counterterrorism experts have suggested
that Ressam, who reportedly was trained in terrorist tactics in Afghanistan,
may be linked to suspected terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, a Saudi
exile believed to be in Afghanistan.

Timing devices found in Ressam's rented Chrysler are identical to ones used
by bin Laden's forces in previous attacks, former CIA counterterrorism chief
Vincent Cannistraro has said.

A Canadian woman married to an Algerian, Lucia Garofalo, was arrested Dec.
19 as she tried to cross into the United States at Beecher Falls, Vt. She
later was linked to Ressam and Meskini through telephone records. She faces
seven charges ranging from illegally transporting an alien into the United
States to possessing a false passport.

Another Algerian man, Bouabide Chamchi, was arrested with Garofalo. He faces
four counts, including possession of a false passport and making false
statements to U.S. Customs. Both Garofalo and Chamchi have pleaded innocent.

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