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How Osama Cracked FBI's Top 10

Robin Clewley Email 09.27.01 | 2:00 AM

When the terrorists who commandeered the four airplanes in the Sept. 11 attacks were identified, their faces appeared in news publications all over the world.

President Bush has said he has evidence that Osama bin Laden was behind the attacks, so it would seem obvious that the FBI would include him and other suspects on its 10 most wanted fugitives Web page.

Think again.

Bin Laden is listed, but only for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. There is no mention of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing or the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000, both of which he is widely believed to have orchestrated. And forget about Sept. 11.

The reason? Fugitives on the list must be formally charged with a crime, and bin Laden is still only a suspect in the recent attacks in New York City and Washington.

"There's going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged," said Rex Tomb, who is head of the FBI's chief fugitive publicity unit and helps decide which fugitives appear on the list. "To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court."

Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer who was deputy director of the U.S. State Department Office of Counterterrorism from 1989 to 1993, said in a Sept. 12 interview conducted by Frontline that there is no concrete proof that bin Laden is responsible for the USS Cole and the 1993 WTC attacks, but bin Laden celebrates those attacks and associates himself with people who are responsible for it.

President Bush promises to reveal evidence linking bin Laden to the suicide hijackers who attacked the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Bin Laden has applauded the attacks but denies direct involvement.

Because the list is used to attract the public's attention to a fugitive, careful consideration must take place before a decision is made, Tomb said. The FBI evaluates if publicity will help or hinder the search for a suspect.

The top 10 list began in 1950 from a suggestion by a reporter from the International News Service, the predecessor of the United Press International, who wanted to know the names and descriptions of the toughest cases the FBI was trying to solve. Because of its appeal and the publicity generated by the creation of the list, former director J. Edgar Hoover implemented the 10 most wanted fugitives program.

The average length of time a fugitive remains on the list is one year, and of the 466 fugitives who have been on the list, 139 have been caught as a direct result of citizen participation, Tomb said. Since the FBI went online, one top 10 fugitive and 13 others have been apprehended because of their presence on the Web. Tomb said the top ten list is the FBI's most popular Web page and receives 2.5 million hits per month.

Some of the more famous fugitives appearing on the list include James Earl Ray, Ted Bundy and Andrew Cunanan, the man convicted of murdering fashion designer Gianni Versace. The reward for catching a fugitive appearing on the list is $50,000. Any additional reward money is supplied by other government agencies or private groups.

Suspects on the list are not ranked, out of respect for the victims. In addition, the FBI does not want to give more importance to one suspect versus another, Tomb said.

"If you had a food chain up there, most of the public attention would be focused on just a few," Tomb said. "Victims of the crime might be resentful of the public attention, as if their fugitive doesn't seem to measure up."

Bin Laden, the second fugitive listed, is the only terrorist among the top 10. He's the only terrorist on the list because he's the only one that's been formally charged and he still remains at large. In addition, Tomb said, just because the country's consciousness is currently aimed at terrorists doesn't mean that other violent crimes that have been committed in the past should be overlooked or forgotten. These criminals should still be on the list.

Bin Laden is officially wanted for "murder of U.S. nationals outside the United States; conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals outside the United States; attack on a federal facility resulting in death."

The list also includes his vital statistics, including the fact that he is 6 feet 4 inches to 6 feet 6 inches tall and walks with a cane.

Since the government believes bin Laden is in Afghanistan, it's not likely that Americans will see his picture and then run into him at the corner store. But one expert said that raising awareness about bin Laden could lead to critical clues.

"While it seems like a remote possibility, you can't discount that the publicity might identify a (terrorist) cell that could perhaps lead to bin Laden," said Mitchell Hammer, an international negotiation professor at American University. "It's certainly not going to be a direct route."

Hammer should know. He has firsthand experience in linking publicity to another terrorist.

He and his colleagues identified links between the Unabomber's manifesto and letters that Ted Kaczynski had written to his family. Ted Kaczynski's brother David had read the manifesto in The New York Times and noticed similarities. He enlisted Hammer's expertise to identify similar characteristics between the manifesto and the letters, which eventually led to Ted Kaczynski's arrest.

But not all publicity is helpful to a case, Tomb said.

"If the FBI is one or two days behind a suspect, you don't want to put the fugitive on the list because you might scare them into hiding."

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