Edition: U.S. / Global

Man Held in Terrorist Plot Agreed to Talk, Agents Say

Published: September 19, 2000

Two federal agents testified yesterday that a Brooklyn man arrested last December in a plot to smuggle explosives into the United States agreed to talk voluntarily in an interrogation lasting more than 10 hours.

The defendant, Abdel Ghani Meskini, 32, is seeking to block prosecutors from using a long statement they say he gave. He asserted in court papers that he was not properly informed of his legal rights, and that he only answered the agents' questions out of fear.

But two Federal Bureau of Investigation agents, testifying in the first day of hearings in Federal District Court in Manhattan, said Mr. Meskini was read his rights against self-incrimination and to legal counsel three times. Mr. Meskini's lawyer, Roland Thau, sought to discredit their account in cross-examination, and suggested they had taken advantage of his client.

Mr. Meskini's statement is seen as critical to the government's case in the terrorist plot, whose origins remain a mystery and whose target in the United States has also not been revealed. Mr. Thau tried to ask one agent whether he believed the plot was linked to Osama bin Laden, whom the authorities suspect of masterminding the bombings of two American embassies in Africa in 1998, but Judge John F. Keenan sustained the government's objections and would not allow him to answer.

Mr. Meskini, who has pleaded not guilty in the case, sat quietly during the hearing yesterday. He might testify this week to offer his own account of what happened after his arrest on charges that he aided a terrorist plot involving an attempt by a group of Algerians in Canada to smuggle powerful explosives into the United States near Seattle.

Mr. Meskini, an Algerian, claimed in an affidavit that he was not advised of his rights until after he had answered some questions.

''And even while I was informed of those rights,'' he wrote, ''I was told about them in a way that clearly conveyed to me that the police wanted to make me talk. I come from a part of the world where police violence, torture and other abuse is most common.''

Yesterday, one of the agents, Francis J. Schulte Jr., testified that no threats were made and that Mr. Meskini was first advised of his rights after his Dec. 30 arrest as he was being driven to F.B.I. headquarters in Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Meskini ''read the advice of rights form out loud to all of us,'' Agent Schulte said.

Upon arrival at 26 Federal Plaza around 8 a.m., Agent Schulte continued, Mr. Meskini was handcuffed and shackled in an interrogation room, and again given his rights. He signed a written waiver and agreed to be interviewed, the agent said.

After about three hours of interrogation, the rights were administered a third time, he said. Mr. Meskini signed another waiver. ''I felt he was somewhat evasive in his answers,'' Agent Schulte said, ''but he did respond. He seemed cooperative.''