How dangerous can an Afro comb and a plastic bottle of hot sauce be? When Officer Louis Pepe came by cell No. 6 at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan on Nov. 1, 2000, he was distracted by a squirt in the face from the bottle before the sharpened comb was plunged like a bayonet through his eye and 2 1/2 in. into his brain. The man in the cell, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, then allegedly took the keys from the paralyzed Pepe and began to wander down the hall. Guards stopped Salim, and he didn't get away. Or did he?
Arrested and extradited from Germany in December 1998, Salim was a prize prisoner for the U.S. government, which originally planned to put him on trial with four others charged with the Aug. 7, 1998, bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa. Salim had complained that he should not be tried with the others in the trial scheduled for February 2000 because he had not been charged with directly carrying out the bombings. The judge had refused to sever the charges, but the assault on Pepe gave the court no choice but to postpone his conspiracy trial. Salim, 43, will first be tried for the attempted murder of Pepe. Three weeks ago, on Oct. 18, all defendants in the embassy-bombing trial were found guilty and sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives.
Salim has made himself out to be small fry in the search for bin Laden associates. But could he be something bigger? The portrait painted of Salim in the embassy-bombing trial is of a powerful and malignant personality. Prosecutors described Salim (whose alias was Abu Hajer al Iraqi) not only as one of Osama bin Laden's council of advisers, the Shura, but also as a key member of the fatwa committee, which helped formulate the theological justification for al-Qaeda's actions. Salim derived his prestige from being a religious scholar who has memorized the Koran, and he would alternate with bin Laden in delivering regular sermons to the al-Qaeda faithful. The government's star witness, a former top al-Qaeda operative, described Salim as bin Laden's "best friend." It was Salim, the prosecutors said, who provided al-Qaeda with a rationale for "collateral damage," citing an ancient fatwa calling for all-out war against pagan invaders, one that was likely to bring about the death of Muslim traders and civilians in the cross fire. If the civilian dead were indeed innocent, the argument went, they would be headed for heaven anyway.
The prosecutors provided evidence in the recent trial that Salim contributed more than theology. He was on the committee that helped al-Qaeda decide to relocate to Sudan in 1990 after the Afghan war. While Salim had told the Germans he handled finances for bin Laden's agriculture business, Themar al Mubaraka, the prosecution's witness claimed that a significant part of one large farm owned by the company was used for training courses in explosives. The witness also said that Salim, who allegedly received a monthly salary of $1,500, helped run bin Laden's Al Hijra Construction company, which ostensibly built roads and bridges but also had a permit to import explosives for construction use. The same witness said that Salim took him on a trip to a chemical-warfare-training facility in Sudan and was a critical link in the negotiations for an attempted $1.5 million purchase of South African uranium in 1993.