Potential informant on al-Qaida ignored

By Richard C. Paddock
Los Angeles Times

Jack Roche last week got a nine-year prison term.

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A converted Muslim, Roche was prepared to become an informant, his attorney says, and provide information about al-Qaida; its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiah; and their goal of staging an attack in a Western country.

But at the time — 14 months before the Sept. 11 attacks — no one was interested.

It wasn't until 2½ years later that authorities decided to take Roche seriously and arrested him on terrorism charges. Last week he was sentenced to nine years in prison for conspiring with al-Qaida leaders to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Canberra.

According to evidence presented in court, Australian and U.S. authorities bungled at least six chances to learn what Roche knew, including the whereabouts of alleged terrorist mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who even then was said to be plotting the Sept. 11 attacks. U.S. authorities had been trying to catch Mohammed since the mid-1990s.

"He had their phone numbers," said Hylton Quail, Roche's lawyer. "He had their e-mail addresses. He knew where they lived. He knew how they worked. He was like a spy who tried to come in from the cold and found the door was locked."

Roche, 50, says he first telephoned the U.S. Embassy in Canberra to offer intelligence on al-Qaida and was told to contact Australian authorities. An embassy official says Roche may have called, but the embassy has no record of it.

Roche subsequently called the Australian Security Intelligence Organization three times to give information, but the agency never pursued his offer.

Prime Minister John Howard said last week that authorities had made a "very serious mistake" in turning Roche away. But he discounted suggestions that Roche's information could have helped prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, or the Bali bombings in 2002 that killed 202 people, including 88 Australians.

Authorities said that when they finally questioned Roche after the Bali bombings, they were surprised that he gave them so much useful information.

"Certainly, from our perspective, the type of information that he was passing on was fairly unique," intelligence agent Michael Duthie said.
 
Authorities have long been stymied in efforts to infiltrate al-Qaida, a closed society bound by adherence to a radical interpretation of Islam and a strict code of secrecy. But that is precisely the kind of access Roche could have provided, his attorney said.

Bin Laden's organization was especially interested in Roche because he did not come from an Islamic country, and it would have been easier for him to plot attacks in Western countries without raising suspicion. A former Australian security analyst said intelligence agencies could have used Roche to send agents to infiltrate the network.

Roche says he was persuaded by Muslim co-workers in Sydney in 1992 to convert to Islam to overcome a drinking problem and for the first time found a sense of belonging. He joined Jemaah Islamiah in 1996, traveled to Afghanistan in 2000, believing he would fight on the side of the Taliban against the Northern Alliance. Instead, he found himself meeting with a who's who of al-Qaida leaders.

When he arrived at the camp outside Kandahar, Roche was invited to join a group of men for lunch and was surprised when he recognized bin Laden.

"I sat down for a meal, and I just started eating," Roche said in a 2002 newspaper interview that was introduced in court. "I looked across and I said, 'Whoa, that's like the bloke on the telly.' ... I nodded, he nodded."

Roche described bin Laden as "a very nice man."

He took a 10-day explosives course that ended with him using 15 pounds of TNT to blow up 27 wooden crates. He discussed possible Australian bombing and assassination targets with Mohammed Atef, then al-Qaida's second-in-command, and Saif Adel, al-Qaida's top military commander.

In Pakistan, Roche says, he met twice with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was wanted by U.S. authorities since 1996 for his alleged role in major terrorist attacks, including a foiled plot to hijack a dozen U.S. airliners in Asia and blow them up over the Pacific. Among the plans they discussed was attacking U.S. jets flying in and out of Australia. Mohammed gave Roche $4,500 to begin surveillance of the Israeli Embassy and other targets.

In Malaysia, Roche met four times with a cleric known as Hambali, a top operative of both al-Qaida and Jemaah Islamiah who allegedly was behind the Bali bombing. They discussed targets, including the Sydney Olympics, and Hambali gave Roche $3,500.

In Indonesia, Roche visited radical cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, the alleged leader of Jemaah Islamiah, and was told to follow Hambali's instructions.

After his return to Australia, Roche says, he checked a FBI Web site and was startled to see that "five or six" of the people he had met were among the world's most-wanted terrorists.

"I was shocked," he said.

Roche feared that al-Qaida would kill him if he tried to back out, so he said he decided to make it look as though he was following the terrorists' orders while quietly informing on them.

In early July 2002, Roche says, he called the U.S. Embassy to offer information. Unable to interest the Americans, he called the Australian intelligence agency, but then canceled a meeting.

Bashir then told Roche to stop his activities. Roche says he disengaged from Jemaah Islamiah, although he didn't abandon the plot completely: He later bought two model rocket igniters that could be used as detonators, the prosecution said.

The Bali bombings on Oct. 12, 2002, awakened Australian authorities to the danger posed by Islamic extremists. On Oct. 30, tipped off by Islamics, police raided Roche's home. They had learned his name from others in the Muslim community and did not know he had once offered information.

Roche spoke freely with police. Videotapes show that the investigators didn't know the names of many of the key players in the terrorist networks.

"Basically, he was putting a noose around his own neck by participating in those long interviews," said Duthie, the intelligence agent.

Prosecutors asked for a sentence close to the 25-year maximum. But Quail, his lawyer, pleaded for leniency. He said Roche believed that information he gave police in 2002 led to the arrest of Mohammed in Pakistan and of Hambali in Thailand.