A Clue Almost Too Good to Be True

CALL IT FORENSIC FORTUITY. DAYS BEFORE THEY even hoped to reach the bottom of the crater dug out by a terrorist bomb at New York City's World Trade Center, law-enforcement technicians happened on a twisted shard from a van frame. It contained a traceable part of a vehicle ID number, leading to a van-lease paper trail in New Jersey and to a suspect. Four days later, FBI agents arrested Mohammed A. Salameh, 25, a Jordanian national of Palestinian descent residing illegally in the U.S., and charged him with taking part in the bombing. Five people died and more than 1,000 were injured in what a federal prosecutor labeled "the single most destructive act of terrorism ever committed on American soil."

Salameh's connection to the destroyed van was firm: he had not only shown ID when renting it but also, claiming theft, later tried to retrieve a $400 deposit on the vehicle. Also, authorities said, they found manuals on circuitry and materials used in bomb building at the address Salameh gave to the rental company.

The question of who else was involved was still murky. Salameh attended a Jersey City mosque often led in worship by Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, a Muslim fundamentalist who was implicated and later acquitted in the 1981 assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. One of Sheik Omar's followers is serving a seven-to-22-year sentence in connection with the 1990 murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane in New York City. (See cover stories beginning on page 24.)