In today’s New York Times is this article by Ben Weiser about some information that has come to light in a memorandum written by District Court Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy this week. Weiser writes:

Federal officials had to be intrigued a few years ago when they learned that the terrorist Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who is serving a life sentence at the Supermax prison in Colorado for orchestrating the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and other crimes, wanted to cooperate with the authorities.

…

David N. Kelley, the lead prosecutor in Mr. Yousef’s 1997 trial in the trade center attack, said he had no knowledge of what Mr. Yousef might have wanted to tell the government, nor did he believe Mr. Yousef knew about the Sept. 11 plot in advance.

But, he said, Mr. Yousef could be in a position to provide new details about [Khalid Sheikh] Mohammed’s early associations with terrorists, “schemes he was cooking up at the time, including flying planes into tall buildings” and early discussions about ways “to exploit perceived security vulnerabilities in the U.S.”

Mr. Kelley added that Mr. Yousef also had a history of misleading the authorities while in custody, and of “trying to fool them” about different plots.

The recent intrigue spilled into public view after Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy of Federal District Court, who handled both Yousef terrorism trials in the 1990s, made a disclosure in a brief memorandum about a dispute over legal fees being paid to Mr. Yousef’s lawyer.

Yousef ultimately reneged on his offer.

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