A Slow Opening to Yousef Trial

NEW YORK: The trial of Ramzi Yousef is off to a slow start. After postponing opening statements until Tuesday after a juror called in sick, U.S. District Judge Kevin Duffy dismissed another juror following a quiz session to determine whether jurors were prejudiced by last week's Brooklyn arrests. Duffy did not give a reason for dropping the juror but said it wasn't related to last week's events. Tensions over the hometown trial increased some more after a bomb scare Monday at the World Trade Center, which forced the evacuation of several hundred people. It turned out that the package had exposed wires but was not a bomb. Prosecutors hope to prove Yousef and suspected cohort Eyad Ismoil were responsible for driving the bomb-laden van into the trade center's underground garage on the day of the attack, which authorities say was intended to shock the U.S. into ending its support for Israel. "We know he directed it all," Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counterterrorism, said of Yousef. What they don't know is who was paying his expenses.