Washington -- The director of the State Department's Diplomatic Security Service, Greg Bujac, told reporters in the briefing room August 14 that "the Department of State is, in fact, going to offer a $2 million for information leading to the arrest and/or information about individuals who may have been involved in the letter bomb campaign last year against Al-Hayat" (an internationally circulated Saudi newspaper with a bureau in Washington).

Bujac said that the FBI and the Diplomatic Security Service at the State Department "have had long time cooperative efforts in counter-terrorism. This is just another example of one of those cooperative efforts. It's clear to us that the people that were responsible for that letter bomb campaign intended to conduct a terrorism campaign in the United States. This is one of those important steps that we can, in fact, take to try to find the perpetrators."

Following is the State Department transcript:

(begin transcript)

RUBIN: Let me introduce the director of our Diplomatic Security Service, Greg Bujac. Greg is going to talk a little bit about this letter bomb case against Al-Hayat and the $2 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the people responsible. Greg? And you will do the other introductions?

BUJAC: I'll do it.

RUBIN: Great.

BUJAC: Thank you very much, Jamie. I am indeed pleased to be here today accompanied by some of my colleagues from the FBI, in particular Tom Pickard and Ray Mislock, who are here from the Washington Field Office.

The reason we are here today is to make an announcement that the Department of State is, in fact, going to offer a $2 million for information leading to the arrest and/or information about individuals who may have been involved in the letter bomb campaign last year against Al-Hayat.

The FBI and Diplomatic Security Service here at the State Department have had long time cooperative efforts in counter-terrorism. This is just another example of one of those cooperative efforts. It's clear to us that the people that were responsible for that letter bomb campaign intended to conduct a terrorism campaign in the United States. This is one of those important steps that we can, in fact, take to try to find the perpetrators.

I would like now to ask Tom Pickard, who is the assistant director of Washington Field Office of the FBI to come forward to reacquaint you with some of the facts in the case. Tom.

PICKARD: Thank you. Thanks, George. Good afternoon. Starting on January 2, 1997, Al-Hayat, right here at the National Press Building in Washington, D.C., received a total of four letter bombs. The letter bombs were sent in the form of musical Christmas cards which contained improvised explosive devices. In addition, one other letter bomb was uncovered at the Brentwood Post Office facility in Maryland.

The letter bombs appear to have originated from Alexandria, Egypt, and were all post-marked December 21, 1996. In addition to the ones in Washington, D.C., three were discovered at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, four in New York City, and four additional ones in London, England.

The three bombs recovered in Kansas on January 2, 1997, were addressed to the Fort Leavenworth Prison, to the attention of Parole Office. No one was injured here in the United States on these; however, when one of the devices was opened in England, two people were when that device detonated. The letter bombs recovered in England and also in the United States are all consistent as far as the types of devices, the addresses and the size of envelopes.

To date, the Washington Field Office of the FBI, in conjunction with the Terrorist Task Force, the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, Postal Inspectors, ATF and the MPD, as well as a number of foreign governments is investigating this. We are delighted with the offer of the reward to try to attract some energy and additional leads to this investigation. Thank you, George.

BUJAC: We'll get so some questions in just a second. What we have on display here on the podium, as you see, are a couple of examples that we are going to be using as a part of the campaign. The $2 million reward poster -- that will be going out throughout the United States, but in particular it will be going to the particular region of the world, the Middle East, looking for people in that region to come forward to tell us any information that they may have with regard to it.

We also have the letter bomb and package bomb indicator poster that alerts people on the things to look for if there is a letter bomb directed to your office. On the other side, we have an actual copy of the letter that was sent to Al-Hayat, that is part of the poster here so you can have a better view of what that looked like.

Now, the important part of this is, how do we get the information? Very quickly, I'll let you know that we have some of these available to you on how to catch a terrorist. They are match books. They will be available to you. Copies of these posters will be available to you, as well. What it tells you is that there is a post office box here in the United States that you can use to mail information. That's on the poster and on the match book. It also will tell you that there is a way to get through the Internet to the Heroes site, in which you can pass information. People around the world can use that to pass information to us. Or, of course, if you are overseas, we implore people to come into the nearest American embassy or consulate to give us that information.

This is obviously an important effort in the fight against terrorism. We are happy to make the announcement today. We will be happy to take a few questions if you have them.

Q: Just one question, at the prison in Fort Leavenworth, is there someone there being currently held who might have some -- who might be of Middle East origin? Might have some connection to an extremist group in Egypt?

BUJAC: Tom -- I'm going to defer to Tom on a lot of these questions, as you can see. If they involve the investigation that's continuing and underway, it's the FBI's responsibility.

PICKARD: Thank you.

BUJAC: Thanks, Tom.

PICKARD: We are looking into that aspect, as far as one of the possible motivations or whatever. We don't comment on who might be incarcerated at the different penitentiaries, though.

Q: Can I ask you why it has taken eight months to offer a reward?

PICKARD: We are trying to re-energize the case, trying to get additional leads. We are also trying to make the comparisons with the other devices that were found throughout the United States and also overseas.

Q: Well, does that suggest you had leads and now you don't? They have not panned out and so you are taking another tack? Is that what you are saying?

PICKARD: We are always looking for additional leads until we prevent further acts of terrorism.

Q: Is putting this reward mean -- does putting this reward mean that you are not going anywhere with the investigation? You haven't found anything that --

PICKARD: On the --

Q: -- is it a sign that --

PICKARD: On the contrary. The investigation is active. We are just looking for additional leads. Until we apprehend these individuals, we won't be satisfied.

Q: You usually say rewards of up to X amount of dollars. Now you are saying flatly $2 million.

BUJAC: No, no, it's clearly up to $2 million.

Q: Okay.

BUJAC: What we do in the rewards program is to make a value judgment as to whether the information is worthy of $100,000, $2 million -- whatever it is.

Q: But those words were missing from the announcement. That's the only thing I'm pointing out.

BUJAC: Then that's a slip on the public affairs side --

On our side. Not in the Public Affairs Office over here at Main State. But it should be up to $2 million.

Q: On the investigation, you say that there is assumptions that the letter bombs have come from Alexandria. And I know the Egyptian Government has insisted over and over that that couldn't possibly have been. What -- and I know the FBI had sent teams up there -- what was the result of the investigations there? And another -- just a quick question. On the posters that are being put up in the Middle East -- this is a dumb question -- they are being put up in Arabic as well as English, right?

BUJAC: Yes, to answer that one very quickly that's easy.

Q: Okay, thank you.

PICKARD: The postmarks appear to be from Alexandria, Egypt. We haven't been able to confirm that to date as to whether they are authentic or counterfeit, and we are continuing that part of the investigation.

Q: Whose budget does the money come from?

BUJAC: It's actually a part of the Secretary of State's budget every year. We have had the program for about ten years now. We have used it in a number of other cases. You may have seen the other match books before that were used for other international terrorist cases. This is just another use of that funding.

Q: I can't resist asking this question. There was a report the other day that the bombing in New York, which apparently had -- they were saying that it was a hoax because whoever was turning in information about those guys was seeking, you know, the reward money? Is that -- do you feel that was a hoax?

BUJAC: Well, what I can only say on that would be that the Heroes site did receive a letter about bombings in New York. But it's an ongoing investigation, and we couldn't make any kind of determination whether it's a hoax or not.

Q: Thank you.

BUJAC: Thank you.

(end transcript)

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