Terrorist who plotted 1973 car bombs, Khalid Al-Jawary, gets deported

Associated Press - February 26, 2009

A mysterious Black September terrorist convicted of planting three car bombs in New York City was deported Thursday, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press.

It was unclear which country had agreed to accept the 63-year-old Khalid Al-Jawary. The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the deportation, didn't immediately know where Al-Jawary was going.

Al-Jawary was convicted in Brooklyn federal court of placing the bombs in 1973 that could have killed and injured hundreds if they had detonated. They were timed to coincide with the arrival of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir.

Al-Jawary was captured in 1991 and sentenced in 1993 to 30 years but served only half his sentence, receiving credit for good behavior and time served.

He was freed last week from the Supermax maximum-security prison in Florence, Colo., and was held by immigration officials in Denver until his deportation. Carl Rusnok, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman, declined to discuss whether Al-Jawary had left the country.

"ICE will deport Khalid Al-Jawary at the earliest opportunity," Rusnok said. "For officer safety, ICE does not provide advance notice regarding the aliens we deport."

Al-Jawary had many aliases and was known to use fake passports from Jordan, Iraq and France, raising questions about where he'd go after his release. The FBI to this day still isn't sure of Al-Jawary's true identity.

Intelligence officials believe at least part of Al-Jawary's family is living in Jordan, including his wife, but it was unlikely the country would accept Al-Jawary given his past terrorism activities and involvement in Black September.

The terrorist group was responsible for the massacre at the 1972 Munich Olympics that killed 11 Israeli athletes, along with other violent attacks. The organization is named after Jordan's crackdown of Palestinian militants in September 1970.

The FBI was investigating whether Al-Jawary helped carry out other terrorist attacks, and was hoping to charge him before his deportation.

An Associated Press investigation published in January linked Al-Jawary to a murderous letter-bombing campaign in the 1970s along with the bombing of a TWA flight in 1974 that killed 88 people.

Al-Jawary was caught passing through Rome in 1991 on his way to the funeral of a Black September terrorist and senior Fatah official in Tunis.

Along with his bomb-making expertise, Al-Jawary was a skilled forger and ran intelligence operations for Fatah.

Peter F. Secchia, the former U.S. ambassador to Italy at the time of Al-Jawary's capture, said in an interview that Al-Jawary "had provided the false identification for most of the Arab terrorists over the years."