The night of the blast, as I reported for the first time in 1000 Years For Revenge, a worried Mary Jo White – about to become the U.S. Attorney for the SDNY – was pacing in the office of James Fox, then Assistant Director in Charge (ADIC) of the FBI's New York Office.
At that moment the FBI was putting word out to the press that they suspected "Serbian terrorists" in the blast. But Napoli and Anticev knew the truth, so they mentioned to White that they'd had an asset "that was very close to these people."
"Asset? What asset?" snapped White. When told of Emad Salem, she immediately demanded that Napoli and Anticev "get him in here."
"Well," said Lou, "We were paying him, like, five hundred a week. This time, you know, considering what's happened, he's probably gonna want – a million dollars."
"I don't give a damn what he wants," she shot back. "If he can deliver, give it to him."
Going back undercover
Within days the SDNY prosecutors coaxed Salem into going back under, this time wearing a wire.
Over the next three months, he uncovered the "Day of Terror" plot, later testifying in front of Judge Mukasey as the star witness for prosecutors Andrew McCarthy and Patrick Fitzgerald.
Salem was ultimately paid one and a half million dollars by the Feds for doing what he could have done in the summer of 1992 if FBI officials like Carson Dunbar hadn't forced his withdrawal.
So the "Day of Terror" case – which is one of the biggest hash marks on Judge Mukasey's c.v. – was really nothing more than a "make good" for the Justice Department's earlier negligence. Worse, Mukasey's refusal to shine a light for the jury (and the press) on Ali Mohamed, the bin Laden spy who had trained the bombing cell, gave the Feds an excuse for disconnecting dots that didn't come together until Ramzi Yousef's second date with the Twin Towers on 9/11.
As reported in 1000 Years For Revenge, as far back as 1994 in Manila, Yousef had hatched the "planes as missiles" plot. It was merely executed by his uncle Khalid Shaikh Mohammed after Ramzi's capture in 1995. But Yousef was the real "mastermind."
And by the fall of '95, after the Feds' "sweeping victory" in the blind Sheikh's trial, Ali Mohamed was planning al Qaeda's next attack.
"The Most Dangerous Man"
Desperate to get him to turn, the Southern District Feds scheduled their second California sitdown with Ali in the fall of 1997.
By then, Patrick Fitzgerald was directing I-49 – the bin Laden Squad – in the FBI's New York Office. He actually flew across the country to meet Mohammed face to face.
Keep in mind that Fitzgerald had convicted "the blind Sheikh" of seditious conspiracy in the "Day of Terror" case before Judge Mukasey.
