What is "incontrovertible evidence"? Would it be a signed confession? Maybe a videotape of bin Ladin talking about the plans with a group of terrorists, perhaps? Not likely to ever get something like that.
I think cases are usually by made by "building a wall of evidence" - producing individual pieces of evidence each of which by themselves may not be 100% proof, but in coordination with a bunch of similar corrobating evidence are convincing proof. From what I've seen there are a number of pieces of evidence which would tie bin Ladin to this and other crimes. He has already been indicted in this country for past terrorist activities.
From US News & World Report 10/1/2001 p22
Algerian Ahmed Ressam, convicted of trying to bomb Los Angeles International Airport during millenium celebrations, testified that bin Ladin gave him $12,000 to mount his attack.
Ressam also told a courtroom two months ago that he trained for a chemical attack at a camp inside Afghanistan where poison was unleashed to kill dogs. "In regard to targets in general ... we were speaking about America," Ahmed Ressam testified in July. Ressam said terrorist trainers discussed
dispensing poison through the air intake vents of buildings to ensure the maximum amount of casualties.
He also said they learned how to place cyanide near a building's air intake to kill as many people as they could without endangering themselves, he testified. Ressam told authorities that the camp taught him how to mix poisons with oily substances and smear them on doorknobs so those who touched them would be killed by toxins coursing through their blood. He said America, as the "enemy of Islam," was the likely target of such attacks.
Here's other evidence reported in the press:
observer.co.uk
. . .from Germany, where agents bugged a known bin Laden cell celebrating wildly at the news
of the atrocities, with one voice exclaiming: 'We did it, we did it.
And from the same source:
Al-Ghamdi and Satam al-Suqami, one of those aboard the north tower aircraft, are said to have been closely linked with Raed Hijazi, a US citizen and Boston taxi driver arrested in Syria and currently on trial in Jordan for a series of thwarted bomb attacks which had been planned for Millennium Eve on hotels used by Westerners.
While awaiting trial, Hijazi has begun to co-operate with investigators, admitting his own membership of al-Qaeda and naming Nabil al-Marabh, another Boston taxi driver, as a leading bin Laden agent inside the US. FBI sources say al-Suqami and al-Ghamdi were also close to al-Marabh, who was arrested near Chicago on Thursday after a nationwide manhunt. He had earlier evaded arrest at a bin Laden safe house in Detroit, where police found false passports and a notebook containing plans and notes about security at a US base in Turkey and an airport in Jordan.
And:
Khalid al-Midhar, another of the hijackers, and the man using the false identity of Nawaq al-Hamzi, also appear to be linked directly to al-Qaeda. In January 2000, according to US reports, they were filmed secretly by the CIA attending a bin Laden operatives' meeting in Malaysia - where al-Qaeda is said to have bank accounts. Al-Midhar, who was on board the Pentagon flight, was already being sought by US investigators for his alleged role in last year's attack on the USS Cole in the Gulf.
I'm sure there is a whole lot more evidence than this. These are just a few things I've picked up from reading about this issue. Then, of course, there is bin Ladin's fatwa he issued calling on all Muslims to kill Americans, civilian or military wherever they can because of our defiling Arabian soil with our presence. |
