A new federal indictment in New York accuses Kataib Hezbollah commander Mohammad al-Saadi of using coded calls from a Brooklyn jail to help direct the failed September plot against RAF Fairford.
Federal prosecutors in New York allege that a commander of the Iran-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah helped direct a failed plot against a British air base while held in a Brooklyn jail, Courthouse News Service and Egypt Independent report. A grand jury returned a superseding indictment on Tuesday, 10 November, against Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian and Iraqi national held at the Metropolitan Detention Center.
Prosecutors say al-Saadi used coded messages in phone calls with his family to pass instructions to two men newly charged with him: Mohsen Mohajeri, described as an operative of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani. In a July call, according to the government, he asked his sister whether their "old work" had been cancelled or paused, and she answered that "it isn't cancelled"; prosecutors say "work" was his term for terrorist activity. On 24 September he allegedly told his family to pay al-Hassani "so we can do it".
Prosecutors say the target was RAF Fairford, which housed US military aircraft, and that the September plot was thwarted when vans heading for the base, which they suspect were meant as vehicle bombs, met an unexpected security checkpoint. British police arrested seven men, who were later released on strict conditions when no explosives were found; several were rearrested in late October. The indictment also alleges that the three men were involved in a March explosives attack on the Bank of New York Mellon building in Amsterdam and attempted attacks on Bank of America in Paris and Jewish institutions in the United States.
The jail-call evidence is contested. Al-Saadi's public defender, Andrew Dalack, declined to comment on the new indictment, but the defence has argued the coded-language claims rest on speculation. Last week US District Judge Colleen McMahon wrote that the government's argument "does not appear to be linked to discrete criminal planning" and asked for more evidence before it keeps limiting his communications. She set a conference for 19 November on whether al-Saadi may represent himself. Al-Saadi has pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges; each defendant faces a maximum of life in prison.
