LONDON — The FBI’s most- wanted list features a dated black-and-white photograph of the man wanted in connection with the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya. “Saif al-Adel,” reads the red banner, “alias Muhammad Ibrahim Makkawi.”
But intelligence officials and others tell The Associated Press that they are two different men.
In the wake of Osama bin Laden’s death, AP reporters around the globe began hunting for fresh details on al-Adel — al-Qaeda’s so-called third man because of his strategic military experience. Traversing a reporting trail that spanned from Europe to Egypt and from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, a new picture started to emerge about the al-Adel investigation: that the FBI’s manhunt dragged in the name of a former jihadist turned vocal al-Qaeda critic, Makkawi, who now can’t get his name off the wanted list.
Intelligence officials from five countries and a handful of sources who say they knew the men personally over the years confirmed to AP that al-Adel and Makkawi are two people. Some of those sources came forward with two photographs that show two different men.
“That is certainly not Makkawi,” Montasser el-Za yat, a lawyer who represented Makkawi in Egypt, told AP after looking at the FBI’s photo of al-Adel.
In e-mails seen by AP, a man who identifies himself as Makkawi says he has tried several times to clear his name but to no avail.
In response to several questions, the FBI declined specific comment last week on whether it was possible that the information it had been using was bad or dated. However, the FBI defended its characterization of al-Adel on Wednesday.
“It is fair to say that a.k.a.’s/alias known to the FBI and used by subjects listed on our Most Wanted site or for that matter for any individual being sought by law enforcement, can also be the names of true individuals,” said FBI spokeswoman Kathleen R. Wright.
She said the FBI was confident that the man on the poster was al-Adel but offered no immediate redress for Makkawi.
The original documents in al-Adel’s case remain sealed, making it all but impossible for the public to see where the FBI obtained its evidence or the details about al-Adel’s identity.
