The complaint alleged that the plaintiff, whose name was Adnan Awad, a native of Palestine, and his American wife Lynn, were residents of our district, residing near Guntown. The complaint was written by Bill Beasley, a fine lawyer from Tupelo who was partners with Pete Mitchell, a well-known and distinguished former district attorney. The complaint was concise, claiming government agents, including Dan Bent, U.S. Attorney for Hawaii, had subpoenaed Awad to testify in Athens, Greece, at the trial of members of the infamous May 15 organization about a terrorist bomb which went off on a Pan Am Flight from Tokyo to Honolulu in 1982. The bomb wounded 15 passengers and killed one and nearly brought down the whole giant airliner and killed everyone on board. The gist of the complaint was that agents of the government had failed to obtain U.S. citizenship and a U.S. passport for Awad, as they had allegedly agreed to do, even after he testified twice, at great risk to his own life, resulting in several convictions, including that of terrorist Mohammed Rashid, a top leader of the May 15 group under the protection of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. Of course I wanted the case.
Upon further reading, it appeared that the case might take years to complete. The witnesses were scattered everywhere. There were serious questions whether the legal theories underlying it were valid. The claims sounded far-fetched. But most important was the secrecy. Any time you deal with national security documents, you can expect excruciating years of squabbles. All attorneys have to pass background checks and take security oaths. Federal agencies often refuse, not surprisingly, to give up their most sensitive documents. Nevertheless, I looked forward to handling the case. As it turned out, things went even slower than I imagined. Poor U.S. Magistrate Jerry Davis, who had also handled the discovery in the endless Ayers lawsuit to desegregate Mississippi’s universities, which I handled for the U.S. Attorney for over twenty-five years, also caught the Awad case, presiding with Chief Judge Glen Davidson, our former U.S. Attorney, over the motion and discovery squabbles in Sealed Plaintiffs. It would be a decade before the Awad case came to trial.
In the meantime, we got a new U.S. attorney, Calvin “Buck” Buchanan, a native of Okolona, an Ole Miss graduate, and former U.S. Army JAG attorney. One day early in his term while we were reviewing the printout of my caseload, he saw Sealed Plaintiffs. “What is this?” he asked. I explained. “This thing may not go to trial in our lifetime. You’re my criminal chief and lead prosecutor on all kinds of cases. Let’s reassign this to Felicia Adams.” A new hire, Felicia was a sharp lawyer and a good writer and could handle the civil motion practice just fine, but Buck could tell how much I wanted to try the case, so he added, “If this baby ever does go to trial, Felicia can brief you on it quickly, and you can jump back in and do the trial with her.” That was all I needed to hear. Felicia later transferred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Jackson and was thus not around for the Awad case. Then in 2011 President Obama returned Felicia Adams to us, naming her U.S. Attorney for the Northern District.
In early 2001, we received notice that the case had been set for trial by Judge Davidson in Aberdeen. The attorney from Main Justice was asking that we get active in the case immediately. New U.S. Attorney Jim Greenlee asked if I would mind handling the case. He did not have to ask twice. I called the assigned DOJ attorney, who was named Joe Shur. A veteran of years of important trials, Joe was open and friendly and in no way condescending to a country cousin lawyer from Mississippi. He asked me not only if I would voir dire the jury but take some of the key witnesses. He had the good judgment to know from experience that the folks in Aberdeen, Mississippi, were not necessarily well-disposed toward Washington lawyers. Some people locally referred to the Clinton administration as our “Second Reconstruction.” The following week we were to interview the plaintiff’s psychiatrist on Awad’s claim that mistreatment by agents had damaged his mental health and marital relations with his wife. That promised to be an interesting interview. I had plenty of experience with shrinks and enjoyed them and their way of thinking.
To bring me up to speed, Joe brought down the remaining defendants, all FBI agents and U.S. Marshals, for me to interview. The years of motions had thinned the ranks of defendants, but the case was still critical to FBI agent Ed Needham and the others. They were sued not only as agents acting in their official capacities but also individually for acts allegedly exceeding their legal authority as agents. Under a Supreme Court decision called Bivens, if the jury found they acted without proper authority, they could be ordered to pay damages out of their own pockets, probably bankrupting them. Nothing is more scary to a government agent than the prospect of financial doom from a lawsuit.
To prepare me, Joe Shur suggested I read a book about the case, which was out of print, but available in libraries. I checked it out of the Ole Miss Library using my adjunct law professor’s card. The book was entitled Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, and was written by Steven Emerson, whom I’d watched many evenings on the PBS News Hour. The book did not mention the lawsuit, but told in great detail the facts of Awad’s background and detailed his testimony in the Rashid case. I had an intern Xerox me two copies and devoured it, writing all over one of them, keeping the other one clean for possible use on cross examination.
Awad’s story was intriguing. Born in a village in the uplands of Palestine, he had an idyllic childhood with a warm and loving extended family. They divided their time between months in the forested mountains and weeks on the beaches of the Mediterranean. The only irritant was the endless conflict with the Israelis, who blocked the roads with checkpoints and searches. Later, during recesses in the trial, Awad told me his family taught him that the Israelis were their enemies but not to hate them, that hate destroyed the hater. He said they told him the problem was so old it would never be resolved in his lifetime. They said it was simple: “They have what we want, and we want what they have. We will kill each other for it till one gets it for good. It is not religion that divides us. It is the land. We both worship it and will readily die for it.”
At the end of Awad’s primary schooling, the Mideast wars persuaded his parents they had to leave Palestine for a time, but would one day return victorious. Their educational system was breaking down, and the violence was never ending. They moved first to Lebanon, which he loved and where he thought he saw a workable solution to the ethnic and religious conflicts, where groups could tolerate each other. Then Lebanon had its own vicious civil war, and his family sent him on to school in Damascus, Syria. He received a good education there but began to run with a bad crowd. He joined a gang of tough Palestinian teenagers who made their spending money shaking down café owners. If the owners refused to pay the teenagers’ petty extortion demands, their businesses were trashed, tables turned over, glasses and plates smashed. The gang never assaulted people, and the police seemed to assume the damages were the result of business rivalries, so Awad was never even arrested.
As Awad matured, he became physically powerful, and local representatives of Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), recruited him for their military wing, the Palestine Liberation Army, a relatively professional unit. They sent him to training camps, where he learned military discipline, how to fire automatic weapons and handle explosives. He loved the military life and rose to the rank of captain. He declined to talk about what he actually did operationally, but was good at repeating what might be called the politically correct line of Arab militancy: “We don’t hate Jews. We exist to oppose the oppression of Zionism, the destruction of Palestine and its people by militant Zionists. They are the ones who hate us. They started this by driving us from our ancestral lands.”
After five years as a PLO officer, Awad became restless. He was not really a political animal and wanted a family and a real home, wherever it took him. He had also discovered his true interest in life: chasing women. He heard that life was good in Baghdad, and with his training in engineering, he thought he could build a life for himself in Ir
aq, then one of the most modern, advanced, and secular of Arab countries. In Baghdad he landed a choice job as foreman on a series of jobs for a Japanese company which was building palaces for Saddam Hussein. Successful and well liked, the suave and urbane Awad began to receive invitations to parties which included members of Saddam’s inner circle. He developed a fatal attraction (the first of several) for a beautiful Iraqi woman connected to the inner circle. He spent more and more time with them to be near her. The group began talking politics, which he did not enjoy, but went along to be with the woman.
Because of his background with the PLO, they began to share with him some of their plans to liberate Palestine. Before he knew it, he was compromised and knew too much. Friends told him he had made a big mistake, because he was now part of the group and could never leave it. He thought of fleeing, but had no credentials to get to the West and there was no place to hide in the Middle East. They would track him down and kill him. He realized too late how naïve he had been.
One night the hammer finally fell on him at a party at the house of a friend of Saddam Hussein. He was summoned into a back room where a fair, slim man with a thin moustache showed him a sophisticated laboratory. There were tables with beakers of chemicals and elaborate bomb-making materials. “We know you know bombs and thought you might be interested.” Awad said he actually knew little about bombs except how to place them and detonate them. The slim man laughed: “We make them. All you have to do is put them where they need to be.” Awad tried not to look afraid, but woke up later in a cold sweat. He thought of heading for the border, leaving all his possessions behind, but he was frozen, his mind numb, unable to act or think. For a week he was like a zombie and called in sick to his job several times.
Then he got the dreaded call. The slim man, whose name was Mohamed Rashid, wanted to meet with him that same evening, at the same house, but alone. With a feeling of doom, Awad went there in a taxi. Ushered quickly into the laboratory, he was greeted warmly by Mohamed and his plotters. “We have a mission for you. Come into the next room.” Beside the lab room was a second, quite different chamber. Lined with shelves on three walls, it looked like a storage room for luggage at a large hotel. Everywhere were suitcases and hang-up garment bags.
Mohamed explained. “You know what a plastic explosive is, of course?” Awad nodded. “This is a very secret, very dangerous place. In every bag here there are plastic explosives hidden somewhere, usually in the lining. None of these bags has any metal. Everything is leather, wood, or plastic: no X-ray will detect any problem with any of these bags. Certain chemicals in which they have been soaked will prevent dogs from alerting on them. We would hate for you to get caught because they suspected you were a drug courier.” Awad felt empty and helpless. He didn’t dare ask what they wanted him to do.
Rashid resumed. “We have taken care of all details. You will be a Lebanese businessman who is combining business with pleasure. You will fly to Athens and have a pleasant vacation at our expense. Then you will fly on to Geneva on business where a first-class suite is reserved for you at the Hilton Hotel.” Mohamed lifted an expensive-looking hang-up bag from a rod. “You will be a well-dressed, rich businessman. They are never suspected. You will check in, leave this bag filled with plastic explosive, set its timer, and walk out of the Hilton hotel forever. We have prepared a second set of identity papers for you as well as reservations on a different airline to return circuitously back here.”
Awad knew he had to say something, so he asked why put the bomb in Geneva, and why in the Hilton? “The Swiss think they are too smart, immune to us Arabs. It will terrify them and all the West and show them there are no safe havens from us. The Hilton is owned by Jews, and many Jews stay there. It will show them they are never safe anywhere.”
Stunned, Awad went along, trying not to look terrified. He wore the elegant clothes they bought for him. With his good looks, good manners, and military posture, he looked the part of a rich Lebanese businessman. In Athens, he had lots of opportunities to meet attractive women and plenty of money to seduce them, but was too nervous and depressed to think of women and spent most of his time locked up in his expensive hotel suite, miserable. When the day came to fly to Geneva, he panicked. He thought of fleeing to Turkey or Iran, where he might work as a displaced Palestinian laborer. But his nerve failed him. He plodded on according to Rashid’s directions. When his taxi pulled up at the Hilton in Geneva, he let the bellman carry the bomb bag up to his suite. Once inside, he broke down completely, sobbing uncontrollably. There was no way he could kill all those people. Perhaps the best way was to set the timer for one minute and blow himself up with all the others. His life was nothing anyway.
Then a strange mood, like a trance from the Arabian nights, overtook him. He began to think of the bomb as alive, like a genie. He talked to it, sharing his fears, asking its advice. Of course the bomb never answered. Awad finally thought about more practical ways out. He knew bombs. Rashid had explained this one to him in detail. Perhaps he could disarm it in such a way as to make it not go off. He would simply walk away, go back to Baghdad, pretend he’d done his part but that the bomb failed to explode. It sometimes happened—wires came loose, timers failed to function. But Rashid was a professional. They would not believe Awad, and would probably torture him horribly. He could never take it and would tell the truth and be tortured to death.
In the end, he decided to go with his heart. He just could not kill people under these cowardly circumstances. He’d take his chances with the West. He called the Swiss police. The officer on the desk thought it was a hoax, or just another “crazy Arab.” Who would help him? He had noticed scores of Saudis in their flowing robes and headdresses in the lobby. He called the Saudi embassy. They were more supportive, but did not want to be involved. They passed him up their chain of command until a high-ranking diplomat finally told him, “Go to the Americans. Tell no one you have talked to us. The Americans will handle it.”
Awad called the American embassy. They seemed dubious, but sent a man right over. Awad showed him the bag. The American said, “This is no bomb.” Awad then showed him the disguised timer and detonator and cut open the lining of the bag. The American called a different branch of the Swiss police. They immediately recognized it as a bomb and took it to their lab. The Americans handed Awad over to the Swiss but remained in daily contact with him. He told them everything. With remarkable skill he drew a very accurate pencil portrait of the bomb room and even of Rashid himself. Trained as an engineer, Awad was an excellent draftsman.
After long discussions, the Swiss and the Americans decided to place Awad in the Swiss version of Witness Protection. They gave him a new identity and a Lebanese passport and relocated him to a city on the coast of Morocco. They gave him a handsome living allowance and a red convertible sports car. After all, he had prevented the worst terror attack in history on Swiss soil. And he was a good source for all sorts of information not just on May 15 but on PLO structure and militant activities from Baghdad to Damascus.
To Adnan Awad, he had made it to paradise. He had saved his life and probably hundreds of others. He had money, status, leisure, and, most important, everything he needed to pursue the beautiful and Westernized women of coastal Morocco. He lived like a minor prince. He began to hope it would never end. But his paradise only lasted a few months. Awad tended to enjoy himself to excess and the Moroccan police began to wonder who he really was and if they really wanted him in their country. Official wiretaps and visual surveillance are widespread there, and his frequent contacts with Swiss and American police were not consistent with his pose as a Lebanese businessman.
After consultations, the Swiss persuaded the Americans to put him into the U.S. Witness Protection Program and move him to the U.S. with yet another identity. Awad agreed. He’d always dreamed of visiting America. Agreements were signed, and he was relocated to a large city in the Northeast. Problems arose immediately. The U.S. program was infinitely more bureaucratic than the S
wiss, and his handlers seemed to know nothing of Arab culture and what it took for him to be comfortable. The food was strange, the climate cold. He had lost his sports car, his fancy hotel, his familiar clothes. To be inconspicuous in America, he had to appear to be a poor Arab immigrant.
Worst of all, American women seemed turned off by him. His tales of adventure, which had seduced the women of Morocco, Baghdad, and Damascus, went nowhere with the women in the bars he frequented. One night, to impress a woman who’d finally shown some interest in him, he told her his true life story, especially the bomb-in-Geneva part. She was fascinated. But after a few weeks together, his macho and domineering Arab-male ways aggravated her. He “disciplined” her. She called the police. When Awad told his U.S. Marshal handlers what he’d done, they moved him again, this time to Boston, and gave him yet another new identity.
This time things worked better. His identity as a Lebanese businessman suited him, and there was an Arab community with familiar food and cultural ways. He met a Lebanese businesswoman, moved in with her, and worked in her business. He was happy, if still cold, and still a valuable terrorism informant. Then came the usual domestic conflicts and crises. She was suspicious of his frequent absences and strange meetings and accused him of seeing another woman. For once faithful, Awad was hurt and decided the only way to explain himself was to tell her the truth and trust her to keep it secret. She did not. His past life scared the bejeebers out of her and she threw him out.
The marshals told him they’d move him one more time, but if he breached security again, he was out of the Witness Program for good. He agreed to make things smoother, and politely asked them to please move him to someplace warm where he’d feel at home. After a year in America, studying the culture, he thought he’d found the perfect place, an Old World city on the water with a mild climate, fine seafood, and a sophisticated culture comfortable with exotic strangers. He wanted to relocate to Charleston, South Carolina.
From Midnight to Guntown Page 47