QUEENS

AMERICAN A POSSIBLE WITNESS IN LONDON BOMBING

When senior Al Qaeda officials called a clandestine summit in a remote region of Pakistan in early 2004, an American eager to earn his terrorist stripes was waiting in the wings. By his own admission, Mohammed Junaid Babar traveled to the province of Waziristan to supply cash and military equipment to the terror network – a key moment in an odyssey that began in Queens and ended in a federal lockup in Manhattan, where Babar has emerged as a possible link to Al Qaeda in the terrorist bombings in London.

At the request of British investigators, the FBI has questioned Babar, 30, about suspected ties between the July 7 attacks and a foiled plot in 2004 by a Pakistani cell to use fertilizer bombs to blow up pubs, restaurants, and train stations for which Babar provided support, law enforcement officials in New York said.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing investigation, confirmed reports that Babar claimed to know one of the London suicide bombers, Mohammed Sidique Khan, when shown a picture of him. But the officials declined to discuss whether Babar provided any further information that would be useful to investigators. Babar, while pleading guilty to terrorism charges and agreeing to cooperate with the government last year, admitted organizing a “jihad training camp” that provided instruction on explosives.

– Associated Press

CAR CRASH KILLS THREE FROM BROOKLYN

Three young Brooklynites were the victims of a deadly accident in Queens on Monday night when the car they were riding in slid off the road and slammed into a tree, police officials said.

Two of the four passengers died on the scene and a third died at Jamaica Hospital, police said. A fourth passenger, who is 20 years old, is still listed in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital. The three victims were identified by police as Jewel Waldren of 1234 Pacific St., Randy Torlery of 1296 Pacific St., and Kiall Llewellyn of 499 Franklin Ave. in Brooklyn. The car was traveling northbound on Crossbay Boulevard when it slid off the road and collided with a tree near the North Channel Bridge, police said. Police are still investigating the cause of the accident, officials said.

– Special to the Sun

MANHATTAN

‘PREPPIE KILLER’ LIABLE FOR $25M, APPEARS FOR DEPOSITION

“Preppie Killer” Robert Chambers, ordered to pay a $25 million judgment for strangling Jennifer Levin in 1986, responded under oath to questions about his finances yesterday but apparently said very little.

Chambers was questioned by Howard Blau, a Levin family attorney who said he asked the ex-convict whether he had a job or any money, how he supported himself, how he could afford a lawyer, and how he was able to buy a $7,000 car when he left prison.

“He doesn’t seem to remember anything,” said Mr. Blau, who questioned Chambers at the State Supreme Court building in Lower Manhattan. “He doesn’t remember if he paid taxes in 2003. He can’t even remember the town in New Jersey he drove to work to in 2004.”

Mr. Blau said Chambers attributed some of his financial support to the girlfriend with whom he lives in a $1,000-a-month apartment on East 57th Street near Second Avenue. The lawyer said he believed she was a bartender.

– Associated Press

CITYWIDE

CITY SPENDING PER PUPIL SPIKES

New York City spending per pupil has grown by 23% over the last 15 years, rising to $13,488 in the 2003-2004 school year from $11,351 in the 1989-1990 school year, according to a new Independent Budget Office report released yesterday.

The budget office found that although federal, state, and local governments all ramped up their education spending over the period, the federal government’s spending growth was the fastest. State spending in the 2003-2004 school year, the last year when numbers are actual and not projections, was at its lowest level in 15 years. State spending comprised only 39.7% of the total. Over the 15-year period, the state paid for an average of 43.2% of the city’s education costs, lower than the city’s 46.1% of the cost.

As the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case has worked its way through the courts, the city has continued to boost education spending, while the state has continued to fall behind, the report found.

“It’s clear that after declining through the mid-90s, spending on education has gone up appreciably. What’s noteworthy is that state spending has not gone up at as fast a pace as city and state spending,” a spokesman for the budget office, Doug Turetsky, said. He added, “The differences are not huge in percentage terms, but when you’re looking at dollars of this magnitude, even small percentage differences are not insubstantial.”

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

COUNCIL MEMBER: DEPT. OF HEALTH NOT MONITORING WATER ADEQUATELY

City Council Member David Yassky accused the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene yesterday of inadequately testing the city’s beach waters and posing health risks to swimmers.

In a press conference outside City Hall, Mr. Yassky, a Democrat of Brooklyn, said the city’s beaches are at risk because the department only tests for one type of bacteria, enterococci, while the National Park Service looks for three kinds – enterococci, coliform, and fecal coliform – in the waters of federally-owned beaches.

“As a result of this difference, the weekend before last, the Gateway National Park beach was closed, but the city beaches [on Rockaway] were not,” Mr. Yassky said.

The Health Department called Mr. Yassky “misinformed” in a statement. The official responsible for the city’s water testing, Albert Montague, told The New York Sun in June that the department switched from a coliform testing system, in which results took five days to process, to Environmental Protection Agency-approved enterococci testing, which has a 24-hour turnaround time. The switch took place last year and “is superior to what we had before. What they found are better correlations between the levels of enterococci that would be in a water body and the degree of health risk posed,” Mr. Montague said.

– Special to the Sun

WEINER TO INTRODUCE BILL DEMANDING BANK’S EXPULSION FROM U.S.

Transforming a mayoral-campaign platform into congressional legislation, Rep. Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who represents Brooklyn and Queens, will today introduce a bill in the House of Representatives demanding that the Arab Bank PLC be expelled from America.

On Sunday, Mr. Weiner, in his capacity as a mayoral candidate, held a press conference with the Zionist Organization of America at which he lamented that the Jordanian bank – which, the congressman maintains, has documented ties to Islamist terrorism – operates its lone American branch in Midtown Manhattan.

Mr. Weiner will announce the bill at the Capitol with two Democratic members of New York’s congressional delegation – Carolyn Maloney, of Manhattan, and Joseph Crowley, of Queens and the Bronx – and Rep. Shelley Berkley, a Democrat of Nevada. The legislation would direct the secretary of the Treasury to revoke the bank’s charter, thereby forcing the institution to depart America’s shores.

– Staff Reporter of the Sun

STATEWIDE

FEMALE HIKER FOUND DEAD IN HIMALAYAS

The Long Island woman who went missing on a mountain hiking expedition in the Himalayas was found dead yesterday, her family said. Erica Kutcher, 27, of Great Neck, N.Y., was found buried under several feet of snow, apparently the victim of a glacial avalanche an hour and a half away from the base camp where she was staying, according to her cousin, Michael Glickman. Kutcher was part of a team attempting to scale the 18,000-foot mountain Shipton Spire in the Karakoram range of the Himalayan Mountains in northern Pakistan, Mr. Glickman said.

After lunch on July 9, a day when spent scaling a rock face with her team, Kutcher decided to go for a hike by herself, but did not return, Mr. Glickman said.

Her team launched a search, eventually enlisting dozens of Pakistani porters and an expedition of Koreans who were climbing nearby, according to the Web site. Kutcher’s family are now beginning the difficult process of getting her body back to America for a proper Jewish burial, but embassy officials in Pakistan said it might not be possible, Mr. Glickman said.

– Special to the Sun