National security adviser Condoleezza Rice’s testimony Thursday about a terrorist’s capture nearly two years before 9/11 rings true with Port Angeles customs inspector Mark Johnson.
Rice, testifying about counterterrorism before the Sept. 11 commission, said the December 1999 capture of Algerian terrorist Ahmed Ressam in Port Angeles was not by chance, nor was it based on prior government intelligence.
Rather, it was due to an alert U.S. Customs inspector, Diana Dean, at the Port Angeles port of entry and three colleagues, she said.
“I fully concur,” Johnson said Thursday.
“We had no prior intel. It was a cold hit, hard work — and that’s what it boils down to.”
Johnson should know.
Still an inspector with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Johnson was one of four agents who helped capture Ressam on Dec. 14, 1999, when the man entered Port Angeles via the MV Coho ferry with a car trunk full of bomb-making materials.
Ressam was en route to southern California to blow up Los Angeles International Airport at the millennium, subsequent court testimony determined.
He remains in a federal lockup in SeaTac, serving a 140-year sentence and reportedly cooperating with U.S. authorities to lower the prison time.
Dean stopped Ressam’s rental car — a 1999 Chrysler 300M driven off the Coho — in an inspection lane, and as then-inspector Mike Chapman checked a suitcase in the vehicle, Ressam fled on foot, leaving his jacket in Johnson’s hands.
Chapman and Johnson chased Ressam down Laurel Street to First Street, where they finally captured him near Lincoln Street and took him into custody.
(Please click on AP NEWS at left for the latest news stemming from Condoleezza Rice’s testimony.)
