Newsweek Picks Up On Sen. Coleman’s Fight For Minnesotans Snubbed By Terror Reward Program

Newsweek, one of the nation's top news magazines, has picked up on Sen. Coleman's efforts on behalf of two Minnesotans  who were snubbed by the U.S. government's Rewards for Justice program. Earlier this month, the State Department announced a $5 million reward to Clarence Prevost, one of Zacarias Moussaoui's former flight instructors.  Moussaui was arrested after raising suspicions while training at a Minnesota flight school.

But court testimony also shows that two of Prevost's colleagues at the flight school, Tim Nelson and Hugh Sims, were actually the first to call the FBI and alert agents to Moussaoui's odd behavior. Their two phone calls, made separately on the morning of Aug. 15, 2001, led the bureau to launch an investigation of Moussaoui within 30 minutes and arrest the French-born Islamic militant on immigration charges the next day, according to testimony from an FBI agent in the trial.

…

The payout has also prompted questions from Minnesota's two U.S. senators, Democrat Amy Klobuchar and Republican Norm Coleman, about how the Rewards for Justice program makes decisions about who should receive payments. Klobuchar has written a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Coleman has demanded an FBI briefing. "This whole thing is cloaked in secrecy and $5 million is a pretty large amount," said one congressional staffer, who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters. "You have to ask, how does this achieve [the program's] goal?" (Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, “Dialing For Dollars,” Newsweek, Jan. 30, 2008)

Click here to read the complete article.