Bin Laden’s ‘Most Wanted’ Notice Omits Involvement in 9/11 Attacks

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

WASHINGTON — Al Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, is a longtime and prominent member of the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list, which notes his role as the suspected mastermind of the deadly American embassy bombings in East Africa on August 7, 1998.

But a more infamous date — September 11, 2001 — is nowhere to be found on the same FBI notice.

The curious omission underscores the Justice Department’s decision, so far, to not seek formal criminal charges against bin Laden for approving Al Qaeda’s most notorious and successful terrorist attack. The notice says Mr. bin Laden is “a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world” but does not provide details.

The absence has provided fodder for the suspicions of those who have suggested the American government or another power might have been complicit in the September 11 hijackings. From this point of view, the lack of a September 11 reference suggests the connection to Al Qaeda is uncertain.

Government and independent investigations have declared otherwise, of course. FBI officials say the wanted poster merely reflects the government’s long-standing practice of relying on actual criminal charges in the notices.

“There’s no mystery here,” an FBI spokesman, Rex Tomb, said. “They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don’t need to at this point. …There is a logic to it.”

The former U.S. attorney in New York who oversaw terrorism cases when Mr. bin Laden was indicted for the embassy bombings there in 1998, David Kelley, said he is not at all surprised by the lack of a reference to September 11 on the official wanted poster. Mr. Kelley said the issue is a matter of legal restrictions and the need to be fair to any defendant.

“It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view,” Mr. Kelley, now in private practice, said. “If I were in government, I’d be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was.”

Mr. bin Laden was placed on the Ten Most Wanted list in June 1999 after being indicted for murder, conspiracy, and other charges in connection with the embassy bombings, and a $5-million reward was put on his head at that time. The listing was updated after September 11, 2001, to include a reward of $25 million, but no mention of the attacks was added.

Others on the list include Colombian drug cartel leader Diego Leon Montoya Sanchez and fugitive Boston crime boss James Bulger, charged with a role in “numerous murders” in the 1970s and 1980s.

The FBI maintains a separate “Most Wanted Terrorists” list, which includes Mr. bin Laden and 25 others who have been indicted in American federal courts in connection with terror plots. This second Mr. bin Laden listing also makes no mention of September 11.

“The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice,” the FBI says in a note accompanying the terrorist list on its Web site. “Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.”


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