Chapter 14

The FBI Interrogations

The FBI interrogations began on May 7, 2002. If the Americans had not fully recognized Mohammed’s value as an intelligence source before they talked to him, they realized it soon enough. He had rubbed shoulders with the entire Al Qaeda leadership. He had met bin Laden four times. Ayman Al Zawahiri had been his doctor. He had spent two weeks with Khalid Sheikh Mohammad in Karachi. He was a huge catch.

They needed an insider like him. His memory was sharp and there was no shortage of levers they could pull to keep him talking. Mohammed was still young and, unlike the Pakistanis and Yemenis at Guantanamo, he had the expectation of living a decent life in Canada. And there was his family. The more fully he cooperated, the sooner he was going home. Mohammed agreed to talk. That’s why he had come to the United States in the first place, but later he wrote an angry letter decrying the tactics the FBI used on him.

There are many methods that these dog interrogators use.

In the beginning they tell you some cunning advice like, for example, saying, “You are still young. Look at your future. We will forgive you and we want what is best for you. There are many of your friends who cooperated with us and now they live a very nice life. We are not against Muslims. Look at your parents and their welfare. You cannot win over us” . . . etc. and all this kind of nonsense.

If this style did not work, they change it by saying: you will waste your life, you stay all your life in prison. There is another cunning style through which they tell you the information they know about you. At that point you think to yourself that, “These guys know a lot about me, so why don’t I talk to them?” This is the first step towards falling into the precipice because the information they have is either fabricated or not confirmed, which means that all of it is built on doubts and not conclusions. They use tricks cleverly, but by Allah’s grace I could discover these tricks just by looking into their eyes and nasty faces.

Mohammed told the FBI the same story he had told CSIS a few weeks earlier. He told them about the Singapore and Manila plots, about bin Laden, KSM, Mike the Bombmaker, and Hambali. “Jabarah stated that there were code words used by Al Qaeda,” according to one FBI report. “These code words were generally established by the individual cells. Some of the code words they used in Asia were: Market=Malaysia, Soup=Singapore, Terminal=Indonesia, Hotel=Philippines, Book=Passport, White Meat=American.” The FBI agents asked about potential targets in Asia, and Jabarah repeated what Hambali had told him in Bangkok. “Hambali discussed carrying out attacks with his group. He was planning to conduct small bombings in bars, cafés or nightclubs frequented by Westerners in Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines and Indonesia,” the FBI wrote. Jabarah gave the FBI names, dates, email addresses. He gave them details he had not given CSIS. He talked so much that the interrogation report based on what he said stretched to dozens of pages.

He told them that Al Qaeda had 3,000 to 4,000 members. He told them that the British were now considered viable targets. He told them that bin Laden was frustrated with the Taliban and “wanted to move to Yemen.” He told them about “a special explosives course” at the Al Farooq training camp. “In this course,” the FBI noted in an interrogation report, “you learn how to make explosives, mix it with germs and shoot with an RPG [Rocket Propelled Grenade] or Katusha. Abu Khabbab taught the course on poisons.” He also told them that his father was active in Islamist politics in Kuwait, the FBI noted, although Mansour denies this. Mohammed added that “he would not have acted in a suicide role” in an attack. There were other people willing to do that.

Just a few months earlier, Mohammed had been an operative out in the field, planning to blow up American embassies. Now he was sitting with FBI agents in New York telling them everything he knew. He continued in the letter in which he talked about his FBI interrogations:

They have another game called “very smart,” but thanks to God, I knew it before I saw their cunning faces. This game, they tell you “You are very smart, choose for yourself.” Or they tell you when you start talking with them, “Oh! You are very smart.” And when you give them a new information they say, “Oh! You are very smart.” The whole purpose is that they praise you, so whoever doesn’t know this game will think, “Yes, I am smart,” but whoever knows it knows that they mean, “You are very stupid.”

God Almighty summarized all this for us in one verse, which we overlooked and asked for the devil. God said, “Never will the Jews or the Christians be satisfied with thee unless thou follow their form of religion. Say, The Guidance of Allah, that is the only Guidance. Wert thou to follow their desires after the knowledge which hath reached thee, then wouldst thou find neither Protector nor helper against Allah.” If it appears . . . that they are angry and confused, then you should know that “you are very smart,” but if they appeared happy and satisfied, then you should know that “you are very stupid” and that you are falling into the pit, God forbid. You should know that the believer is not going to be bitten by the snake twice and God will never overpower the infidel over the believers.

Jihadists have had to contend with arrest and interrogation since the days of the Soviet War and before. The bulk of the Muslim volunteers who trekked to Afghanistan to fight with the mujahedin eventually went home, and they were sometimes detained and tortured. Faced with this threat, Al Qaeda allowed that, “Under pressure of torture in the custody of the questioning apparatus, the brother may reveal some secrets.”

The more senior Al Qaeda members in captivity have revealed all kinds of secrets to counter-terrorism investigators. Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, for example, has been remarkably cooperative. But in their minds, Al Qaeda members are not criminals; they are prisoners of war, captured by the enemy during the epic battle between Islam and the infidels. For a terrorist to confess is not to admit to sins; it is the opposite, to say proudly before God that he is not only a believer but one who has acted on his faith. Besides, terrorists know full well that the more they talk, the more they will be rewarded with leniency—and maybe a spot in the witness protection program. And although Al Qaeda prepares its members for capture, interrogators can be persuasive. Before sitting down with someone like Jabarah, the FBI consults experts at their psychological unit who devise an interrogation strategy. They study their source and come up with a plan of attack, and if that doesn’t work, they adjust tactics accordingly. Interrogation is a much more sophisticated art than some in Al Qaeda recognize.

The initial interrogations of Mohammed Jabarah ended after three weeks, on May 31, 2002. Mohammed called his father and said he was fine, that he was being held in an apartment-like room, and that he was eating and sleeping well and cooperating. But Mohammed had more than the FBI to contend with. In the agreement he had signed in Toronto, cooperating with the investigators was only step one of the process. He had also agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges.

Once the FBI was done with him, Jabarah had to deal with James B. Comey, the United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. A father of five, Comey had majored in chemistry and religion at the College of William and Mary in Virginia before studying law at the University of Chicago. He clerked for Judge John M. Walker and then joined the U.S. Attorney’s Office in 1987. By January 2002, he was the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.

As a prosecutor, he had taken on the drug trade, the mafia and corporate crime—WorldCom, Adelphia and Imclone, the downfall of Martha Stewart. He had also prosecuted his share of terrorists. He convicted those behind the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, which had killed 19 U.S. servicemen. He was no stranger to Canadian terrorists either. Comey had successfully fought the appeal of Mokhtar Haouari, an Algerian shopkeeper from Montreal who had conspired with Ahmed Ressam to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. It was Comey who had signed, on behalf of the U.S. government, the agreement that Mohammed had endorsed in Toronto.

The prosecutors took the statements Mohammed had given to the FBI and rewrote them into a legal case. Comey approved a five-count indictment, charging that, “From in or about January 2000 through the date of the filing of this Information, in Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Oman, and Afghanistan . . . MOHAMMED MANSOUR JABARAH . . . together with Usama Bin Laden and other members and associates of the groups known as al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah and others known and unknown, unlawfully, willfully and knowingly combined, conspired, confederated and agreed to kill nationals of the United States.” It said Jabarah had “attended terrorist training camps sponsored by al Qaeda” in March 2001, and that in May 2001, he had “made ‘bayat,’ that is, he pledged allegiance to Usama Bin Laden.”

Comey detailed Jabarah’s travels through Southeast Asia, and charged him with plotting to bomb the American and Israeli embassies in Singapore and Manila. The indictment said Mohammed had conspired to kill U.S. government employees, and “to use weapons of mass destruction, to wit, bombs, against nationals of the United States.” There was a fourth count of conspiring to destroy U.S. property, and to top it off, Comey charged Jabarah with lying to FBI agents when he told them the last time he had seen one of his co-conspirators was in January 2002 in Bangkok. The indictment identified Jabarah by his real name and two of his aliases, “Abu Hafs al Kuwaiti” and “Sammy.”

The Americans were throwing the book at Mohammed.

They had taken the things he had told them and used them against him. The proceedings in United States of America v. Mohammed Mansour Jabarah have all taken place behind closed doors, so it has proved difficult to follow the case, but in March 2004, according to his father, Jabarah wrote a letter explaining his guilty plea.

The only reason I pleaded guilty in front of the judge was because at the time I wasn’t being held in prison. I was in a special room, I have everything I want and they told me if you did not plead guilty we are going to put you right now in the prison.

The charges decided, the only outstanding question was what sentence Mohammed would face. The charges put forward by Comey were extremely serious, enough to keep Mohammed behind bars for the rest of his life. But there was still the matter of leniency. Before leaving Toronto, Mohammed had made sure that the promise of “benefits” for his cooperation was put down on paper. Mohammed was hoping he could bargain for a two-year jail term or, at most, five years, but the U.S. Attorney’s office had a more substantial jail term in mind.

As the prosecution and defense lawyers argued over his fate, Mohammed continued writing letters home. In one, he tells his brother Abdullah to learn from the errors he believed he made in captivity. Indeed, he seems to regret having ever opened his mouth. He says he should not have talked to the FBI or the “cunning” CSIS agent Mike (in Mansour’s translation of that particular letter, Mike is not “cunning” but “malignant” and “arrogant”). He continues in his letter:

My brother, you may wonder, what is the use of saying all this? I’ll tell you. These are all experiences that I have passed through and I am telling you the mistakes that I have made so that you can avoid them. In summary, I should not have answered them with anything, even when they asked me, “Is your name Mohammed?” I shouldn’t have responded to them because if I said “Yes,” then you are confirming your identity and this is something that will benefit them very much.

The story of Jabarah’s capture and transfer to the United States broke in the press in July 2002. Reporters staked out the Jabarah house in St. Catharines but were greeted by a sign on the front door reading: “No Media Please.” The Canadian government was ready with press lines to feed to reporters. CSIS had drafted answers to anticipated questions for the Solicitor-General that were vague but summed up the agency’s take on the Jabarah case: “Counter terrorism is the number one priority of CSIS; international cooperation is critical to ensuring public safety here and abroad; I will not comment further on the details of this case as the matter is the subject of ongoing investigation.” Two days later, the Minister of Foreign Affairs was briefed about what he should say if asked what Canada was doing to assist Jabarah: “The individual has not requested consular assistance from the Canadian government. The Department of Foreign Affairs is seeking further information.”

As the media interest continued, the Solicitor-General was advised he could go a bit further in his answers: “I can confirm that I was made aware of this case and that CSIS provided assistance to their American counterparts. In the fight against terrorism, such cooperation amongst international security and law enforcement agencies is vital. For reasons of national security, it would be inappropriate to comment further on this case.”

On August 1, the minister was given more to tell reporters. “The fight against terrorism is an intricate, cooperative and international effort. In this particular case, CSIS assisted U.S. authorities, in compliance with Canadian law.”

The Singaporeans were pleased with the information that CSIS shared with them concerning Mohammed. On August 16, the Internal Security Department (ISD) conducted more raids, arresting another 21 people. Nineteen of them were members of Jemaah Islamiyah, while the remaining pair were affiliated with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The Singapore JI network was, by now, thought to have been “severely disrupted.”

Following Mohammed’s capture, Abdul Rahman Jabarah became the focus for Canadian investigators, but he was nowhere to be found. Mansour recalls having the following exchange with a CSIS officer who came to his door in St. Catharines asking about his 23-year-old son.

“Has he done anything against the Canadian rules?” Mansour asked.

“No.”

“Does he have the right to go everywhere?”

“Yes.”

“Why you are looking for him? You are looking for each Canadian citizen?”

“No.”

“But why you are looking for Abdul Rahman?”

“There is information,” the agent replied. “I have to look for it.”

Abdul Rahman was still on the loose, but the other two-thirds of the Abu Gaith trio had at least been accounted for. Mohammed was jailed in New York and Al Kandari was back in Kuwait, where security authorities were monitoring him—although not nearly closely enough.