Calls Show Link to Algerians, U.S. Says

BURLINGTON, Vt. —  Telephone records demonstrate ties between a Montreal woman arrested at a remote Vermont border crossing last month and two Algerians linked to an alleged bomb plot in Washington state, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.

Court documents filed in advance of Wednesday’s bail hearing for Lucia Garofalo made connections for the first time between her and Abdel Ghani and Ahmed Ressam. Garofalo’s attorney called the links tenuous.

U.S. Magistrate Jerome Niedermeier denied a bail motion for Garofalo’s release after prosecutors presented evidence that she made a series of telephone calls to a person indirectly linked to Ressam.

Garofalo, 35, was arrested Dec. 19 on suspicion of minor immigration violations while trying to cross the border at Beecher Falls, Vt.

Five days earlier, Ressam was arrested in Washington state, allegedly while trying to carry bomb-making materials into the U.S. And in late December, Ghani was arrested in New York and accused of traveling to Washington in an attempt to meet with Ressam. Both men are being held without bail on explosives charges.

The arrests had stirred fears of terrorist attacks, perhaps timed for New Year’s Eve.

The alleged phone links are circuitous, prosecutors said, but they alleged that that was how the terrorist organization Ghani and Ressam belonged to operated. Previously, Ressam and Ghani have been linked to the Algerian Armed Islamic Group, known by its French acronym, GIA.

Also Wednesday, a federal grand jury in Seattle indicted Abdel Tizegha, 29, linked to Ressam and Ghani, on two counts of illegally entering the U.S. from Canada.