Intelligence Panel Hears from Glass

by John Pacenti

The Palm Beach Post

October 17, 2002



Randy Glass, the former Boca Raton con man who rubbed elbows with terrorists as a federal informant, testified Wednesday before congressional investigators looking into the terrorist attacks last year.

What Glass has to say centers on his role in the probe that resulted in the West Palm Beach arrests of two men as arms brokers trying to finalize a deal to sell stinger antiaircraft missiles, nuclear components and other high-tech weaponry to terrorists linked in court documents to Osama Bin Laden.

The special joint inquiry committee created by the House and Senate intelligence committees to review the events of Sept. 11 also is looking into intelligence communication breakdowns.

In August 2001, just before Glass started to serve a seven-month sentence for a $6 million jewelry scam, he said he reached out to Sen. Bob Graham and U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler. He said he told staffers for both lawmakers that a Pakistani operative working for the Taliban known as R.G. Abbas made three references to imminent plans to attack the World Trade Center during the probe, which ended in June 2001.

At one meeting at New York's Tribeca Grill caught on tape, Abbas pointed to the World Trade Center and said, "Those towers are coming down," Glass said.

Glass also now says the State Department, in an effort to maintain good diplomatic relations with Pakistan, pulled the plug on the South Florida terrorist probe, believing Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf could control the militant terrorist faction of his government.

Glass spent 3 1/2 hours under oath Wednesday. The staffers have spoken to about 500 people with information, said Paul Anderson, spokesman for Graham, the Florida Democrat who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee.

"I told them I have specific evidence, and I can document it," Glass said.

Court documents detail how Glass worked numerous cases as a confidential informant, including the arms probe that nabbed Diaa Badr Mohsen and Mohammed "Mike" Malik of New Jersey as they showed off weaponry at a Palm Beach International Airport hangar. A federal prosecutor told a judge that Glass had been in contact with agents of the Taliban, the Afghan regime that protected bin Laden. Both Mohsen and Malik pleaded guilty.

Mohsen was sentenced to about 2 1/2 years in prison. Malik's sentence remains sealed but a source says he received 30 months.

State Sen. Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton, was the first to take Glass seriously when he sat down with him shortly after Mohsen and Malik were arrested in June 2001. The lawmaker said he is surprised it has taken so long for Washington to listen to Glass.

"Shame on us," Klein said. "Whether Randy Glass is credible or not, he has some information that should be evaluated."

Klein said he doesn't recall any talk from Glass about the World Trade Center but does recall specific national security information. He forwarded Glass' information to Graham's office, and followed up on it to make sure it was processed.

Glass' reputation as a convicted con artist didn't help and no federal agency would corroborate his story.

Graham acknowledged at news conference in Boca Raton last month that Glass had contact with his office before Sept. 11, 2001, about an attack on the World Trade Center. "I was concerned about that and a dozen other pieces of information which emanated from the summer of 2001," the senator said.

Graham later said he was unaware of Glass' information until after the terrorist attacks. Glass did speak to a Tallahassee staffer before the attacks but the impression was that Glass wanted Graham to intercede in his criminal case, Anderson said.

Eric Johnson, Wexler's chief of staff, said Glass contacted the office by phone before the terrorist attacks but there is no record of what happened to that information. Since then, other information provided by Glass has been passed on to the FBI.

Glass angrily denies he contacted the lawmakers so they could intercede in his criminal case. He said he wanted only to relay information on plans for an attack in which the World Trade Center had been mentioned. He does say he wanted his prison sentence postponed so he could continue his work.

When the attacks occurred, Glass was in federal prison at Eglin Air Force Base.

"When it happened I literally fell to my knees and started to cry," Glass said. "The frustration level that I had. Who could I tell?"



john_pacenti@pbpost.com



Copyright © 2002, The Palm Beach Post.





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