US to Release Convicted 'Mystery' Terrorist for 1973 NYC Bomb Plots
PLO terrorist Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary, convicted in 1993, is about to be released after serving half of his 30 year term.

by Staff, AP
January 25, 2009

PLO terrorist
Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary
 

The AP has a fascinating investigative report about a PLO terrorist, Khalid Duhham Al-Jawary, convicted in 1993, just before the first twin Towers bombing event, for failed bomb plots in Manhattan in 1973. He is about to be released after serving half of his 30 year term. Now aged 63 years, the question is where will he likely be deported after release on February 19th and what will he do? The guess is return to his terrorist craft.

The failed 1973 attempts were aimed at Israeli bank and El Al cargo facilities targets in New York. The bombs he used were so-called e-Cells and used imported Semetech explosives and were capable of inflicting significant casualties with shrapnel. Al-Jawary when interviewed during the plot investigations alleged that he was in Manhattan to undertake flight training as a commercial pilot and return to the Middle East, an eerie precedent to what happened with the 9/11 perpetrators. He went on the lam after FBI interviews and returned to the Middle East. The AP investigative piece chronicles Al-Jawary’s possible role as master bomb maker in several airline bombings in Greece, Lebanon, Tunis, Bagdad. He was apprehended along with 11 Palestinians on the Austrian German border found with bombing materials in an apparent attempt in 1979 to hit Israeli targets in Germany. Al-Jawary was released before the FBI got wind of his involvement. He was alleged to have perpetrated a midair explosion on a TWA flight over Honolulu in 1982 that killed two people. Federal authorities in this report allege that Al-Jawary may have been responsible for Hundreds of people killed or maimed. It is further alleged that Al-Jawary may even have received KGB training in his deadly bomb making craft. It took more than two decades to find and convict him in the Eastern District Federal New York Court in Brooklyn.

Note these comments:

A Brooklyn jury … took about three hours for the jury to convict Al-Jawary in 1993 — just days after the first attack on the World Trade Center — based on evidence that included his fingerprints on one of the bombs.

Judge Jack B. Weinstein sentenced Al-Jawary to 30 years in prison on April 16, 1993. Weinstein later rejected his pleas for mercy in a written opinion issued after the trial, saying the bombs would have "killed and maimed hundreds, caused large fires and terrorized thousands of people."

Al-Jawary, the judge wrote, was a serious threat.

"It is highly likely that were this defendant released he would continue his dangerous terrorist activities," the judge said.

Since his conviction, many top Palestinian officials have written to the judge on Al-Jawary's behalf, seeking his release. There's even a death certificate in court files along with witnesses claiming Al-Jawary was killed by Israeli shelling in 1988.

None of it was convincing. Al-Jawary's appeals foundered.

Al-Jawary has never admitted his dark past or offered up tidbits in exchange for his release. Much of Al-Jawary's life remains a mystery — even to the dogged FBI case agent who tracked him down.

Former FBI Counter terrorism agent Mike Higgins of the New York office who relentlessly pursued and captured Al-Jawary in Italy said this about him: "He's a very dangerous man. A very bad guy." Agent McTigue who conducted the 1974 interrogations of Al-Jawary noted:

"What is he going to do when he gets out?" McTigue said. "He'll be deported and received as a hero and go right back into his terrorist activities. He's had years to think about nothing else but causing havoc and destruction."