Algerian Admits Bomb Plot, Pledges Cooperation

NEW YORK —  An Algerian national pleaded guilty Thursday to participating in a plot to bomb millennium celebrations in the United States and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Abdel Ghani Meskini, 33, announced his decision in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.

At the time of his 1999 arrest in Brooklyn, government lawyers alleged that Meskini had traveled to Seattle to meet Ahmed Ressam, who was arrested in Washington state as he allegedly drove a vehicle loaded with explosives off a ferry from Canada.

Authorities alleged that Meskini was aware that Ressam and others were part of a well-organized terrorist group.

Meskini, who said he received military training in camps in Afghanistan, told an FBI informant the aim of the network of Algerian nationals was to “punish America,” investigators said in court documents. His plea comes just four days before Ressam’s trial is scheduled to begin Monday in Los Angeles.

On Thursday, Meskini told U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska that he conspired with Mokhtar Haouari, another Algerian who was arrested by Canadian authorities on charges of conspiring to support a terrorist group. Haouari’s trial is set for April 17 in New York.

Meskini told the judge that he and Haouari provided “material support” to Ressam, “whose entry into the United States through Canada created a substantial risk for destruction of real or personal property.”

He said he traveled to Seattle to give Ressam “money, transportation, a communications device and other means of assistance should he request it.”

In addition, Meskini said, he conspired with Haouari and others to manufacture and distribute fraudulent passports and false immigration identification cards and Social Security cards. The cards were to be used to gain access to bank accounts and credit cards.

“As part of this conspiracy, I deposited stolen and forged checks . . . into bank accounts in New York,” Meskini said.

Prosecutors said Meskini, who used the alias Eduardo Rocha, was in Seattle from Dec. 11 to 16, 1999, to meet Ressam and travel with him to Chicago and other cities to raise money for a terrorist group.

After Ressam’s arrest, government lawyers said that Meskini destroyed his own plane ticket and a bank statement that showed his trip to Seattle. FBI agents who watched Meskini before his arrest said he threw documents into a supermarket dumpster near his Brooklyn home.

If convicted of terrorism conspiracy and other charges, Meskini could have faced up to 105 years in prison and fines of $2.75 million.

But government lawyers told Preska on Thursday that they would seek a reduced sentence and request that Meskini be admitted to the witness protection program if he continues to cooperate.