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What are you getting at? David O Q To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Charles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] Date sent: Sun, 23 Jun 2002 07:25:51 +0800 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK > --------------------------- > > Comrades, > > An interesting thing is I've yet to see a picture of even one of the 50 or > 60 Israeli "art students" and these guys. > > Charles > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Saturday, June 22, 2002 9:16 PM > Subject: Re: Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies? [WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK] > > > HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK > --------------------------- > > In a message dated 6/21/2002 11:29:45 PM Pacific Daylight Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > Is this the entire article? > > No. > > The White Van > Were Israelis Detained on Sept. 11 Spies? > > > June 21 — Millions saw the horrific images of the World Trade Center > attacks, > and those who saw them won't forget them. But a New Jersey homemaker saw > something that morning that prompted an investigation into five young > Israelis and their possible connection to Israeli intelligence. > > > Maria, who asked us not to use her last name, had a view of the World Trade > Center from her New Jersey apartment building. She remembers a neighbor > calling her shortly after the first plane hit the towers.She grabbed her > binoculars and watched the destruction unfolding in lower Manhattan. But as > she watched the disaster, something else caught her eye.Maria says she saw > three young men kneeling on the roof of a white van in the parking lot of > her > apartment building. "They seemed to be taking a movie," Maria said.The men > were taking video or photos of themselves with the World Trade Center > burning > in the background, she said. What struck Maria were the expressions on the > men's faces. "They were like happy, you know … They didn't look shocked to > me. I thought it was very strange," she said. She found the behavior so > suspicious that she wrote down the license plate number of the van and > called > the police. Before long, the FBI was also on the scene, and a statewide > bulletin was issued on the van. The plate number was traced to a van owned > by > a company called Urban Moving. Around 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, the van was > spotted > on a service road off Route 3, near New Jersey's Giants Stadium. A police > officer pulled the van over, finding five men, between 22 and 27 years old, > in the vehicle. The men were taken out of the van at gunpoint and handcuffed > by police. The arresting officers said they saw a lot that aroused their > suspicion about the men. One of the passengers had $4,700 in cash hidden in > his sock. Another was carrying two foreign passports. A box cutter was found > in the van. But perhaps the biggest surprise for the officers came when the > five men identified themselves as Israeli citizens. ‘We Are Not Your Problem > ’ > According to the police report, one of the passengers told the officers they > had been on the West Side Highway in Manhattan "during the incident" — > referring to the World Trade Center attack. The driver of the van, Sivan > Kurzberg, told the officers, "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your > problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." The other > passengers were his brother Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and > Omer > Marmari. When the men were transferred to jail, the case was transferred out > of the FBI's Criminal Division, and into the bureau's Foreign > Counterintelligence Section, which is responsible for espionage cases, > ABCNEWS has learned. One reason for the shift, sources told ABCNEWS, was > that > the FBI believed Urban Moving may have been providing cover for an Israeli > intelligence operation. After the five men were arrested, the FBI got a > warrant and searched Urban Moving's Weehawken, N.J., offices. The FBI > searched Urban Moving's offices for several hours, removing boxes of > documents and a dozen computer hard drives. The FBI also questioned Urban > Moving's owner. His attorney insists that his client answered all of the > FBI's questions. But when FBI agents tried to interview him again a few days > later, he was gone. Three months later 2020's cameras photographed the > inside > of Urban Moving, and it looked as if the business had been shut down in a > big > hurry. Cell phones were lying around; office phones were still connected; > and > the property of dozens of clients remained in the warehouse. The owner had > also cleared out of his New Jersey home, put it up for sale and returned > with > his family to Israel. ‘A Scary Situation’Steven Gordon, the attorney for the > five Israeli detainees, acknowledged that his clients' actions on Sept. 11 > would easily have aroused suspicions. "You got a group of guys that are > taking pictures, on top of a roof, of the World Trade Center. They're > speaking in a foreign language. They got two passports on 'em. One's got a > wad of cash on him, and they got box cutters. Now that's a scary situation." > But Gordon insisted that his clients were just five young men who had come > to > America for a vacation, ended up working for a moving company, and were > taking pictures of the event. The five Israelis were held at the > Metropolitan > Detention Center in Brooklyn, ostensibly for overstaying their tourist visas > and working in the United States illegally. Two weeks after their arrest, an > immigration judge ordered them to be deported. But sources told ABCNEWS that > FBI and CIA officials in Washington put a hold on the case. The five men > were > held in detention for more than two months. Some of them were placed in > solitary confinement for 40 days, and some of them were given as many as > seven lie-detector tests. 'Plenty of Speculation'Since their arrest, plenty > of speculation has swirled about the case, and what the five men were doing > that morning. Eventually, The Forward, a respected Jewish newspaper in New > York, reported the FBI concluded that two of the men were Israeli > intelligence operatives. Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of operations for > counterterrorism with the CIA who is now a consultant for ABCNEWS, said > federal authorities' interest in the case was heightened when some of the > men's names were found in a search of a national intelligence database. > Israeli Intelligence Connection?According to Cannistraro, many people in the > U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were > working for Israeli intelligence. Cannistraro said there was speculation as > to whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of > launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists in the area, > particularly in the New Jersey-New York area." Under this scenario, the > alleged spying operation was not aimed against the United States, but at > penetrating or monitoring radical fund-raising and support networks in > Muslim > communities like Paterson, N.J., which was one of the places where several > of > the hijackers lived in the months prior to Sept. 11. For the FBI, > deciphering > the truth from the five Israelis proved to be difficult. One of them, Paul > Kurzberg, refused to take a lie-detector test for 10 weeks — then failed it, > according to his lawyer. Another of his lawyers told us Kurzberg had been > reluctant to take the test because he had once worked for Israeli > intelligence in another country. Sources say the Israelis were targeting > these fund-raising networks because they were thought to be channeling money > to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, groups that are responsible for most of the > suicide bombings in Israel. "[The] Israeli government has been very > concerned > about the activity of radical Islamic groups in the United States that could > be a support apparatus to Hamas and Islamic Jihad," Cannistraro said.The men > denied that they had been working for Israeli intelligence out of the New > Jersey moving company, and Ram Horvitz, their Israeli attorney, dismissed > the > allegations as "stupid and ridiculous." Mark Regev, the spokesman for the > Israeli Embassy in Washington, goes even further, asserting the issue was > never even discussed with U.S. officials."These five men were not involved > in > any intelligence operation in the United States, and the American > intelligence authorities have never raised this issue with us," Regev said. > "The story is simply false." No ‘Pre-Knowledge’Despite the denials, sources > tell ABCNEWS there is still debate within the FBI over whether or not the > young men were spies. Many U.S. government officials still believe that some > of them were on a mission for Israeli intelligence. But the FBI told > ABCNEWS, > "To date, this investigation has not identified anybody who in this country > had pre-knowledge of the events of 9/11." Sources also said that even if the > men were spies, there is no evidence to conclude they had advance knowledge > of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11. The investigation, at the end of the > day, after all the polygraphs, all of the field work, all the > cross-checking, > the intelligence work, concluded that they probably did not have advance > knowledge of 9/11," Cannistraro noted. As to what they were doing on the > van, > they say they read about the attack on the Internet, couldn't see it from > thei > r offices and went to the parking lot for a better view. But no one has been > able to find a good explanation for why they may have been smiling with the > towers of the World Trade Center burning in the background. Both the lawyers > for the young men and the Israeli Embassy chalk it up to immature conduct. > According to ABCNEWS sources, Israeli and U.S. government officials worked > out a deal — and after 71 days, the five Israelis were taken out of jail, > put > on a plane, and deported back home. While the former detainees refused to > answer ABCNEWS' questions about their detention and what they were doing on > Sept. 11, several of the detainees discussed their experience in America on > an Israeli talk show after their return home. Said one of the men, denying > that they were laughing or happy on the morning of Sept. 11, "The fact of > the > matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our > purpose was to document the event." ABCNEWS' Chris Isham, John Miller, > Glenn > Silber and Chris Vlasto contributed to this report. > > > > > > > > > > > > --------------------------- > ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST > > --------------------------- > ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST > > > > --------------------------- ANTI-NATO INFORMATION LIST ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.bacIlu Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
