http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1065709.html
Last update - 05:06 20/02/2009
Black September terrorist who plotted to attack Golda Meir released from
U.S. prison
By The Associated Press
A Black September terrorist who served only about half his 30-year
sentence for planting three car bombs in New York City in 1973 was
released Thursday into the custody of immigration officials to be
deported.
Khalid Al-Jawary, 63, was released from the Supermax maximum-security
prison in Florence, Colorado, said Carl Rusnok, a U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement spokesman. Rusnok said a federal immigration judge had signed a
deportation order for Al-Jawary. Al-Jawary's release date was set for Thursday
after he was credited with time served before his sentencing and good behavior.
Rusnok declined to say where Al-Jawary was being held as he awaits
deportation. It's also not clear when Al-Jawary will be deported or where he
will be sent. The mysterious terrorist had many aliases and was known to use
fake passports from Jordan, Iraq and France.
Al-Jawary has denied involvement in the 1973 New York City bomb plot; he
claims his real name is Khaled Mohammed El-Jassem. The FBI to this day remains
unsure of his true identity; his nom de guerre was Abu Walid al-Iraqi.
Al-Jawary, under that name, was convicted in 1993 of placing two powerful
bombs along Fifth Avenue and a third at John F. Kennedy International Airport
20 years before. The bombs, which failed to detonate, were timed to coincide
with the arrival of then-Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.
The case has drawn widespread attention since an Associated Press
investigation last month raised questions about whether Al-Jawary had a role in
a murderous letter-bombing campaign and the bombing of an TWA flight in 1974
that killed 88 people.
Al-Jawary was a member of Black September, a terrorist group responsible
for many lethal attacks, including the killings of 11 Israeli athletes at the
1972 Olympics in Munich, Germany.
In 1979, Al-Jawary was arrested in Germany while trying to carry out a
terrorist attack on likely Israeli and Jewish targets. The next year, he
escaped an assassination attempt in Beirut that left two of his aides injured
and his car smoldering.
Al-Jawary blamed the attack on Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence
service. At the time of the failed hit, he was working for Abu Iyad, a top
commander in Fatah, the Palestine Liberation Organization's military wing.
Iyad was killed in Tunisia by a rival Palestinian faction in 1991.
Al-Jawary was apprehended passing through Rome in January 1991 to attend Iyad's
funeral. Iyad was believed to have helped plan the Munich murders.
Retired FBI agents John Syron and Jim Phelan, who worked the case in
1973, said freeing Al-Jawary was a mistake. The bombs would have killed many
people if they had gone off, they said.
"Bad move," Phelan said. He's not going to change.
Authorities said Al-Jawary's family lives in the Middle East but declined
to say where.
Before his transfer to ICE custody, Al-Jawary was being held at the
Supermax, considered the United States' most secure federal prison. It's home
to other notorious terrorists including Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui
and Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the 1993 World Trade Center attack.
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