Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 6, 1993 TAG: 9303060321
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The Washington Post
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BOMB PROBE WIDENS CHEMICALS FOUND; MYSTERY REMAINS
Federal agents, stepping up their search for accomplices in last week's World Trade Center bombing, Friday uncovered sulfuric acid and other bomb-making chemicals in a New Jersey storage locker rented by Mohammed A. Salameh, the Jordanian-born suspect arrested in the case on Thursday, a source close to the case said Friday.The discovery of the chemicals came as a second man arrested, Ibrahim A. Elgabrowny, was ordered held without bail after a brief hearing. Outside the Manhattan courthouse, his lawyer accused federal authorities of attempting to "scapegoat" individuals of Arabic origin in a "legal lynching."
But despite earlier hopes of further arrests in what some officials have described as an act of Middle East-linked "terrorism," officials acknowledged they have made little progress in resolving the mysteries surrounding the bombing or determining the motive for the Feb. 26 blast, in which five were killed and more than 1,000 injured.
Most mysterious of all was the role of Salameh, 25, an illegal immigrant who was was arrested Thursday when he showed up at a Jersey City rental company to reclaim a $400 deposit for a rental van authorities determined was used in the explosion. Salameh, who was charged with "aiding and abetting" the bombing, had reported the van stolen.
Federal immigration officials confirmed Friday that Salameh was a Jordanian citizen who entered the country on a six-month tourist visa Feb. 17, 1988, and is believed to have been here illegally since it elapsed.
Officials Friday were still unable to offer any explanation as to why Salameh, purportedly a follower of Omar Abdul Rahman, a radical Islamic cleric suspected by federal officials of international terrorist links, would have returned to the rental agency, where he was apprehended easily, after the blast.
At the same time, officials said they feared that some witnesses wanted for questioning may have fled the country. James Fox, the FBI official in charge of the investigation, said Friday night that associates of Salameh wanted for questioning had "disappeared shortly after the blast, and we are unable to locate them at this time."
"It is a little too early to tell if there's anything solid there in the sense of, `is this an organized effort to conduct violence against U.S. entities,' " said a source familiar the case.
The source also noted that while there is extensive evidence of relationships among Salameh, Elgabrowny, and others, that evidence ultimately may prove of little value in pursuing the case in court, and that so far the FBI had no hard evidence establishing a relationship between Salameh and any larger terrorist conspiracy.
"They live in a small community and each of them know each other and they protect each other," said the source. "Well, so does every other small ethnic people. But such relationships don't add up to a conspiracy. Proving that or disproving that is hard."
Further adding to the confusion were reports of three additional arrests Friday in Brooklyn. But an FBI spokesman Friday night said later that the suspects were "unrelated" to the bomb investigation, while another source described them as "fringe" characters at best.