Frank Pellegrino
Frank Pellegrino is an American FBI law enforcement official who has specialized in counter-terrorism.[1]
In 1993 he was assigned to help investigate the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.[1] He has told interviewers this is when he first heard the name Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He would, eventually, be one of the first FBI agents to interview Mohammed, in 2007. He is expected to be one of the prime prosecution witnesses, if Mohammed very long pre-trial hearings conclude, and he finally goes on trial.
Pellegrino says the FBI located Mohammed, in Qatar, in the mid-1990s, and hoped to get permission to arrest him there.[1] However, State Department officials were unable to get Qatari permission.
Pellegrino delayed retiring from the FBI for three years in hopes that he would still be an FBI agent, when he testified against Mohammed, finally being forced to retire in 2021.[1]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Gordon Corera, Steve Swann (2021-09-06). "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed: How '9/11 mastermind' slipped through FBI's fingers". BBC News. Archived from the original on 2023-09-09. https://web.archive.org/web/20230909073547/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58393231. Retrieved 2023-09-29. "The former FBI special agent had pursued Mohammed for nearly three decades, yet the alleged 9/11 mastermind is yet to face justice."
