FBI: Abortion foe behind hoax letters

WASHINGTON -- The FBI Thursday named fugitive Clayton Lee Waagner, an avowed antiabortion militant, as the primary suspect in the mailing of hundreds of hoax anthrax letters to abortion clinics since Sept. 11.

Federal investigators, who searched Waagner's family home in Pennsylvania last week, have linked him to the mailings by matching his fingerprints with a print lifted from one of the letters.

In addition, Waagner -- who has been on the run since escaping from an Illinois jail in February -- allegedly told a fellow abortion opponent that he was responsible for the mailings during a bizarre episode last Friday in which the other man, Neal Horsley, claimed Waagner took him hostage. Horsley runs a radical antiabortion Web site.

More than 280 letters were sent to East Coast abortion clinics during the second week of October. A second series of more than 270 letters, also falsely claiming to contain anthrax, was sent to clinics in the first week of November. FBI officials said the letters were mailed from numerous cities along the path of Interstate 75, including Cleveland, Columbus, Knoxville and Atlanta.

Elsewhere ...

WASHINGTON: A federal judge ordered an Indonesian man who once delivered takeout food throughout the Washington area held without bond on Thursday after FBI agents testified that he used his U.S. address to help one of the Sept. 11 hijacking suspects enter the country.

Agus Budiman, 31, is one of a handful of people in custody across the country who is suspected of having direct links to the Sept. 11 terrorists or Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

U.S. District Court Judge Theresa Buchanan made her ruling after FBI Agent Jesus Gomez testified that Budiman allowed hijacker Ziad Jarrah to use his address on his visa application. Jarrah is thought to be the pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.

Authorities say Budiman has had many connections to terrorist suspects, starting in Hamburg, Germany, and continuing after he entered the United States from Hamburg in October 2000. He once helped Mohamed Atta, the alleged coordinator of the Sept. 11 attacks, move into a residence in Hamburg.

VANCOUVER: An Algerian man arrested in Canada was a close accomplice of Ahmed Ressam, who was convicted of plotting to bomb Los Angeles International Airport, according to FBI documents made public Thursday.

Samir Ait Mohamed discussed setting off bombs in Montreal with Ressam and helped him plan the Los Angeles bombing plot that was foiled by Ressam's arrest while trying to enter the United States in December 1999.

PHILADELPHIA: The American Civil Liberties Union has begun distributing an Arabic-language "bust card" informing immigrants of their rights if confronted by a law enforcement officer.

The cards inform immigrants that they have the right to remain silent, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and the right to speak with a lawyer, though they caution that those detained by the Immigration and Naturalization Service do not get a court-appointed attorney.

MILAN: Police raided mosques and Islamic centers in northern Italy on Thursday, arresting two people accused of recruiting fighters for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

As part of its crackdown on suspected Islamic militants, authorities intercepted cryptic phone conversations between members of a Milan cell and bin Laden operatives in Afghanistan, according to Bruno Megale, a deputy chief with Italy's anti-terrorism unit.

The two men arrested were identified as Nabil Benattia, a 35-year-old Tunisian, and Yassine Chekkouri, 35, of Morocco. Their arrests come two weeks after police picked up Abdelhalim Hafed Remadna, 35, of Algeria, as he boarded a train in Milan carrying phony residency papers.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright