Jim Crogan
(Cont'd) Secrets of Timothy McVeigh
Fri Mar 26 03:29:51 2004
63.228.144.66


The owner says two men were in the SUV. They got out, and one of them appeared to throw something into the ditch. Then they drove back out. “I told the maintenance man to keep his eyes open for something that might have been tossed when he checked down there. He later found an Arizona plate in the grass and gave it to me.” The motel owner also discovered a T-shirt emblazoned with an American flag in that area. A motel guest told the owner and Davis he saw McVeigh wearing the same shirt on April 18. The owner wanted to give the plate and shirt to the FBI. “But they weren’t interested. I wrapped them in plastic and stuck them in my closet. I still have them.”

The FBI interviewed the motel owner several times. “I told them [the agents], if you don’t believe me, there are four other staff people who saw McVeigh here with those Iraqis. But they wouldn’t interview them.”

The Weekly interviewed two of those four witnesses. Only one of them still works there. The third, a female clerk, has died, and the fourth, her husband, declined to speak. Both told Davis that McVeigh and a group of Middle Eastern–looking men were at the motel on April 18. “I was with [the motel owner] when that third vehicle came back,” says the maintenance man. “We watched them go to the end of the property, get out and throw something in the ditch. Then they left. [The owner] sent me to see what it was. I found the Arizona plate and gave it to him.”

This witness says he saw the Ryder truck and McVeigh with some Middle Eastern–looking men, on April 18. The truck made a vivid impression. “It smelled real bad, and I kept walking around it looking for a leak. I was real concerned because diesel is hard to clean up and it would have been my job.” He says he was willing to talk to the FBI. “My boss gave them my name, but they never called.”

The second witness, an ex-employee, says he phoned the FBI several times after the attack before he finally set up an appointment. The motel owner was already being questioned when this second witness arrived at the FBI’s office for his interview. “They left me waiting,” he says. “I told the receptionist I had to go. But she asked me to stay. Finally, after three hours, I told her, ‘Tell the agents to call me when they want me back.’ But they never did.”

This witness is also sure he saw the Ryder, McVeigh and a group of “Middle Easterners” at the motel the morning of the attack. At 7:30 a.m., he began his trash detail. “That’s when I was overwhelmed by diesel smell from the truck. I worked seven years in oil fields, so I know diesel.”

He walked around the Ryder twice, looking for the leak. “Then I saw McVeigh and the Arabs head toward the truck.” And he insists, “I didn’t see someone who looked like McVeigh. I saw McVeigh. I was 10 feet away and recognized him when I saw him on TV.”

McVeigh and another man, this witness says, got into the Ryder and drove to the office. McVeigh, he adds, also stayed there months earlier. “I used to see him walking around. But we never said much, except hello.” When his arrest was broadcast, this witness says he told his wife, “‘I know him. He stayed at the motel.’ That’s when I decided to call the FBI.”



The most recent official scrutiny given to claims of a possible Middle Eastern conspiracy is the briefing the FBI held in October 2002, with Swanton, an assistant U.S. attorney, temporarily assigned to Specter’s staff and House committee investigators. The memo Kalisch wrote after the meeting attacks Davis’ investigation and the credibility of the motel owner. “Kalisch’s letter is filled with lies, omissions and disinformation,” responds the former KFOR reporter. “It’s the same old story with the FBI. Cover it up,” adds David Schippers, Davis’ attorney and former lead counsel spearheading the House impeachment of Bill Clinton. “Maybe they just don’t know the difference between truth and lies.”

The motel owner says Kalisch’s statements to Specter’s office made him angry. She distorted or omitted much of what he said, he alleges. Kalisch writes that the FBI first interviewed the owner in November 1995. “She implies I waited seven months to call,” the motel owner says. “But I called the FBI several times after McVeigh’s arrest, to say he was here. I just never heard back.” Finally, his business attorney told a retired federal judge who was a friend of McVeigh’s prosecutor. “And he arranged my first interview.”

Kalisch also claims the motel owner re-contacted the FBI in December 1995 and told agents the “Ryder truck was not at the motel, and he may have been influenced by the news media and a co-worker. That’s an outright lie,” the owner angrily counters. “I never said that or changed my information.”

Kalisch also states that the owner refused to give (the FBI or agents) them information about his guests. But the owner says the FBI wanted all his room records going back to 1990. “I wanted a subpoena or some sort of receipt to prove they took them. They didn’t want to give me one,” he continues. “So I said no. I was afraid the agents would claim they never got them. I also offered to make them copies.” An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent later made some excuse to get them from the owner’s father. And the owner says the FBI won’t return his original records.

The FBI scheduled a polygraph test for the motel owner. He was supposed to receive it at his January 1996 interview, but it was never given. Kalisch doesn’t explain why. And the motel owner doesn’t understand it. “I wanted to take it. But they refused to test me.”

Kalisch based her criticism of Davis’ findings on an FBI review of KFOR’s material on Samir Khalil and Hussain Alhussaini. The TV station also sent over their stories on the pickup and the APB. Kalisch writes, “Channel 4 contradicts themselves in that they contend a brown pickup owned by Khalil was used.” But Davis says KFOR transcripts prove the station never reported that Khalil owned the pickup.

Khalil, who has used other names, owns Samara Properties in Oklahoma City. In 1991, this Palestinian native pleaded guilty to insurance fraud and served eight months in federal prison. The FBI also accused him of having links to the Palestine Liberation Organization. Khalil denied that in court papers. He also hired several of the Iraqi refugees investigated by Davis.

Davis zeroed in on Hussain Alhussaini, a former Iraqi soldier and POW in the Gulf War, who appeared to match the FBI’s profile sketch of John Doe No. 2. She collected 22 signed affidavits from witnesses alleging that they saw McVeigh with him and/or other Samara workers, in the weeks before the bombing, and tried twice to give this material to the FBI. Davis says only two of the eight Iraqis she investigated are still in Oklahoma City. One travels frequently, and the others have disappeared. Alhussaini was last reported in Massachusetts, working at Logan Airport outside Boston.

The FBI never interviewed Alhussaini, Kalisch states, because Todd Bunting, an Army soldier who went to Elliot’s Body Shop the day after McVeigh, was mistakenly identified as John Doe No. 2. Kalisch also claims the sketches of John Does No. 1 and No. 2 were based solely on interviews with Tom Kessinger, Elliot’s mechanic, who misidentified Bunting as John Doe No. 2.

But Kalisch ignores the FBI’s profile sketch of John Doe No. 2. FBI artist Jean Boylan drew it using descriptions from Oklahoma City witnesses and Kessinger. This third sketch was released on May 1, 1995. Boylan’s witnesses included Debbie Nakanashi, who worked at the post office across the street from the Murrah Building. Nakanashi said she saw McVeigh with another man in downtown Oklahoma City before the bombing. She gave Davis a sworn affidavit with that information.

Kalisch also disregards Eldon Elliot, the body shop’s owner, who inspected the Ryder truck with McVeigh. Elliot testified at McVeigh’s trial and Nichols’ preliminary hearing in the state case that McVeigh came to his store twice. He also insists McVeigh was with another man when he rented the truck and that he never identified Bunting as that man. Nevertheless, citing Kessinger’s misidentification, the Bureau decided it was all a mistake. John Doe No. 2, it announced, never existed.

Davis’ stories on Alhussaini aired in 1995. Although she digitized his face and never identified him by name, Alhussaini came forward and identified himself, but denied any connection to the bombing. He later sued Davis and KFOR for defamation. A federal judge dismissed his suit in 1999. Alhussaini appealed. In March 2003, the appellate court unanimously rejected his claims, noting that Davis had never identified him. The appellate judges also confirmed a lower court’s finding that KFOR’s reports were “either true or statements of opinion that did not defame the plaintiff.”

The Weekly contacted Kalisch at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., but she refused to be interviewed. “I understand you’re asking me about a letter I signed, but I’m not going to talk to you,” she said. An FBI spokesperson said he would try to arrange an interview with Kalisch, but none was ever scheduled.

The Weekly also called Swanton. He confirmed that Davis supplied Specter’s office with “volumes and volumes of material” before the FBI briefing. “But I’m wearing two hats, the U.S. Attorney’s and Specter’s, so I need to get interviews approved. I’ll call you back if I can talk.” Swanton never called or returned the paper’s follow-up calls. He’s since left Specter’s office.

McVeigh went to his grave denying a larger plot. And the Justice Department maintains no evidence of a conspiracy beyond McVeigh and Nichols ever surfaced. But witnesses and evidence contradicting those claims continue to come up.
(Cont'd) Secrets of Timothy McVeigh
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/18/news-crogan.php

The details surrounding the pickup and its recovery, the efforts taken to disguise it, the fingerprints found on this truck, and Ellis’ statements are just the latest examples. Davis’ material on an alleged Middle Eastern connection and a John Doe No. 2 suspect are others. Kalisch’s and Swanton’s refusals to comment only fuel the controversy.

Perhaps the Nichols trial will finally set the record straight. If this jury hears the witnesses ignored by the FBI and examines all the evidence, we may finally settle these issues. Then we’ll know if there was a larger plot, and other conspirators who must still be brought to justice.

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