>> c-span: where history unfolds daily. in 1979, c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies. and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. next, on book tvs "after words", muslim american federal agents tamer elnoury discusses his experience fighting domestic terrorism in america. he's interviewed by michael german, author of thinking like a terrorist, insight of

a former undercover agent. he's also a fellow at the brennan center for justice. because of his undercover work, mister tamer elnoury's identity is hidden behind a screen and his voice has been altered. >> my name is mike german, a fellow at nyu law school and a former fbi agent and it's my great pleasure to talk to tamer elnoury about his new book american radical, inside the world of an undercover muslim fbi agent and camera, i think i want to start by letting you explain why it is that you have to speak from behind the screen.>>. >> thanks for having me my. the reason obviously is because of the fact that i am still an active covert operative for the fbi joint terrorism task force. my identity even if i wasn't active is sensitive and

should never be revealed, obviously. >> and i think that's what makes your book so unusual. a lot of fbi agents after they retire have gone out and written memoirs, but all of those have had to go through a screening process at the fbi before they are allowed to be published. what made you want to write the book while you were still working undercover? >> i get that a lot. within the organization and outside the organization. and it's a great question. the truth is, i guess it's a bit of a perfect score store. firstoff , one of my international terrorism cases was declassified and that gave me an opportunity to be a voice for those that don't have one. i have a unique perspective as you are aware. into a world that most

americans know little about. i'm also hoping to honor the brave men and women of the fbi combating terrorism every day. >> why don't you tell me a little bit, as much as you can about your background or how you got into law enforcement . got into the fbi. >> yes, i had, i was born in egypt. came to the states when i was young, 4 and a half years old. i speak arabic speak english area and i'm sunni muslim. i grew up in the northeast, new jersey new york area. and i went into law enforcement out of college. i worked undercover narcotics for 12 years and after the events of 9/11, i wanted to dedicate the rest of my career and life to combating

this evil in terrorism. >> you mentioned in the book that when you first approached the fbi, they were very responsive obviously in the immediate aftermath of the attack, i imagine they were pretty busy but when you finally did put up with an fbi recruiter, one of the things you suggest was that it was difficult for the fbi to get people who have arabic language skills through the undercover school. why do you think that was or was that just a recruiting tool of trying to give you one more reason to join? >> well, the recruiter basically explained to me that especially in law enforcement there's obviously many different tentacles that you can do, various forms as you are well aware within the lawenforcement community. you could be slot , you could

work bank robberies, violent crimes but in the undercover skill set was a bit rare to find. not everybody does it and it doesn't make you a good cop, bad, it just makes you different. guys have a niche for doing undercover work so you are already working with a smaller pool to choosefrom . throw in the language skills, cultural skills, the religion , your pool is even less. i just happened to be at the right place and the right time and thankfully the right skill set to do this work. >> when you were still working in law enforcement before you came to the fbi, what attracted you to undercover work ? >> i worked on the fugitive task force. i worked a lot more overt law enforcement work and i loved it.

it intrigued me, but it just didn't have the same grass to me as working undercover. i started off making a lot of mistakes. i definitely knew i had a lot to learn in the first couple years doing undercover drug court area only by the grace of god did i make it through alive. so i learned on the job and it was challenging to me every day. crafting back stories, figuring out my subjects, getting them to confide in me. it's a different type of adrenaline. a different type of work. >> and that rings true to me. i worked a lot of state and local law enforcement officers worked undercover and i was kind of shocked to see how little training they received before they were put out there.

basically in drug cases, that's dangerous. how do you feel about the training that you got before you came to the fbi and maybe describe the fbi's trainingas you can ? >> your spot on. that's the absolute truth. undercover work at the state and local levels is a sink or swim type endeavor.you either get it or you don't and unfortunately, the training, although over the years i've seen it get much better, when i started doing it there wasn't much available. but the fbi has taken it to a whole new level. i've worked with agencies across the globe from different countries. law enforcement and intelligence agencies all over the world, and there is nothing that compares to the fbi undercover program. second to none. the reason for it is yes, the training the elaborate

commitment to these legends that are under covers portray and it really gives us multiple tools to be able to do the job regardless of national security. >> and i think one of the things i thought, it was the people who did the work, the agents who are active undercover agents were always willing to come back and provide training, to be there as counselors and i hope that's still the case. i'm sure it is. >> it's absolutely the case and it is the strongest fraternity of brotherhood and sisterhood, law enforcement i've ever encountered. i could be operational on the east coast and in la and say i need aguy to step in . and played this cameo for me and i need you to represent yourself and be x, y, and z. and he or she would be on the next flight out to help you.

>> we support each other, always have each other back and we all always make time to come back and two to the school to train. >>. >> so when you got brought in , you'd been in law enforcement for more than a decade. and in fact doing some pretty hazardous and detailed work. i think you say it in one part of the book, 2500 different drug buys. so you were very experienced. did you have to go back to the academy? >> no. i at that stage was able to get brought into the joint terrorism task force. after all my clearances came through i was able to go to the fbi undercover school and i hit the ground running.>> and how long and typically, with at least the way it the rules were when i was undercover, that had four years as an fbi agent before you started working undercover but that's no

longer work didn't apply to you, just because of the wealth of your experience? >> i'm not so sure if it was the wealth of the experience or if it was a combination of that with the language, the skill that i had. my knowledge of the religion. my current need. for that skill set. so it might have been just you know, accommodation. >> and did you find it was difficult picking up on the paperwork and the rules, because that was why they wanted you to have that work. >> yes. the paperwork, yes. every agency i've worked within any division, they've all gone out of their way to help solve that because if you remember, paperwork is always lengthy. >> did you ever feel that

there was any discrimination against you because of your background or any other reason? i know there hadbeen other complaints from other muslim and arab agents over the years . >> how do you mean, as far as within? >> or in law enforcement in general. >> know, i can honestly tell you that it's quite the opposite. i will say this much, that sometimes when you have a particularskill set , infiltrating bikers or drug dealers or gun runners or terrorists, sometimes what i always tell students at the fbi undercover school is don't believe the hype about yourself. don't become the diva that says i need this kind of car or this particular apartment or, don't be the person that isn't a cop behind the wheel,

isn't a part of the team. no matter how good or successful you may be doing undercover work.so i will go one step further to answer your question and say i've always been treated extremely well in almost the other end of the spectrum, too well. >> there's a program called the post adjudication risk management program which basically the way it works is most agents go through a background reinvestigation every five years but if you were born abroad, you have to go through that every year constantly. at that been something that's applied to you at all? >> no, it's never applied to me. >> tell me, number one, how the book got written. your co-authoris kevin bauer who has written other books . how did he reach out to you because you were working in an alias and your name isn't, your real name isn't known.

how did he get in touch with you? >> the book came about, quite a funny story. once i decided that i wanted to get this message out for personal and professional reasons, my first phone call was to fbi headquarters and prepublication unit and the security division. i've wondered about because i wanted this to be done, i wanted to be an open book, no pun intended moving forward and i wanted to follow all the rules and begin to publish it because i wasn't looking to give someone in insight into a world they were allowed to have. i didn't want any class. i wanted to do this completely within the fbi's purview. once i got the outline as to how to move forward writing the book, igot permission to start. i reached out to joe passed on , a.k.a.

donnie roscoe who was one of my instructors at the fbi undercover school. i asked him how to go about doing it and he set me up with my agent frank wyman. frank in turn reached out to a publisher. who, he arranged a meeting. met with him for about an hour and a half. and shortly thereafter we had a contract.>> a week later. the book publisher called me and said i have just the guy that you should talk to. he's going to sign a nondisclosure before you can get on the phone and i think you will love him. >> and boy, was he writes. kevin and i are very good friends and i have a respect for him, the last year and a half i've he taught me more than i talk to anyone in my family. we spent a lot of time together and he is not only a brilliant author, he's a remarkable journalist and a very special skill set that i

was very impressed to learn. number one, this process is difficult, arduous but amazing. but two, he had an when he was interviewing me and talking to me. to be able to capture my voice but also put me in a spot where that particular chapter, he would ask me about certain books i was reading or where we were, who was there and he managed to be able to draw on my memories and put me back in that situation so brilliantly that it's an amazing skill set. i love the way he sees the world and i love the way he writes it and i was very fortunate that i got to work with him. >> and the book does actually put you in the place that you said the details are very helpful. and i'm sure your sense of humor rather than his comes through quite a bit through

the book. as far as the why, you mentioned that there are things going on and there have been a number of print periods of time when i was working at the aclu, there were some counterterrorism training materials that we obtained for the fbi. >> that reflected a strong anti-muslim and anti-arab bias area and of course over the course of last presidential campaign there was a lot of anti-muslim animus expressed by president trump and of course a muslim man. you touch on that in the book. is that what was driving why you wanted to, or what was driving why you were deciding that you needed to write this now? >> i think what you touched on generally, but let me be a

little bit more specific. as a professional, doing what i do, the things that you hear in the news and people's comments, you have to kind of let that slide. you see articles all the time that i would love to be able to answer about the job that we do but we're not allowed to do that. we don't talk generally. >> this time it was different. i was working at the fbi office and there was a news program on and on the heels of thenicest attack in europe . one of the broadcasters asked the question how many millions of muslim americans are there? why aren't they standing up to denounce terrorism? and for some reason, that one stop. they've gotten very good at overlooking anything and everything.

so you know what? i'm raising my hand and this american muslim and an american radical isn't just about religion. it's obviously about the backdrop of deep cover international terrorism. it's a deep dive into the terrorist mindset and how they work with religion for political regions. how they change and it's a deep dive into a different terrorist mindset. so it's imperative to me that because i have platform, this was my 15 minutes and here i am and if i am here today, i'm not speaking on behalf of the fbi, i'm speaking on behalf of any intelligence agency not speaking on behalf of anybody but myself but i would like to say that i hope or that i am speaking on behalf of the millions of muslim americans and 1.7 billion across the muslims that don't think radically. i want them to feel comfortable and stand up and

say that is not, that's what's being warped by al qaeda. they're not the only ones with a voice. >>. >> and i thought you said it very well toward the end of the book, if you don't mind me reading a couple sentences . keeping america's doors open ensures that when we are threatened by an enemy, we will always have someone who looks like them to help defeat them. our best defense is inclusion. america is everyone and obviously if you're a family that had been denied entry into the united states when you wouldn't have been available to be doing the kind of work that you're doing. i think that in itself is really a well-placed thought . and i appreciate your going andcoming out with the book now.>> you have another life . where you talk about the same issue on how the way some commenters describe muslim

terrorism in a way that's inclusive but you say that your not afraid of the label radical islam. and don't object to it as politically incorrect but it's factually incorrect. right? it doesn't adequately describe or to broadly describes what are very different things. hamas has some political goals, isis has different political goals, hezbollah, different and that label can kind of confuse things. much less when youget down to the individual level , as the subjects of the investigation at work, where they all come from different motivations, do you talk about that a little bit? >> absolutely. for starters, yes. i wholeheartedly believe that radical islam's undoing will

be those pointsbetween all the different radical factions . you're absolutely right and i do point that out in the book . but as far is if you want me to elaborate on the term radical islam and whether or not it's politically correct, i'm not a politician. it's not in need to be politically incorrect. i am a muslim american and i can honestly tell you i'm not offended by that term. i really don't care what they call it. you can: savages that are twisting a religion. you can call them anything and everything but the truth of the matter is, spending all this time discussing their label is taking away from what they actually are. who cares what we call them? what we need as a nation is to understand the fundamental difference between those groups, between radical islam and the true tenets of the religion, and that is the only way todefeat them .

to defeat and win the global war on terror, we first must understand it. >> you say the problems are when every muslim is painted with the same jhottie brush, these are using a peaceful religion to further their agenda and that's not political . i think that's very well said. so if you don't mind, let's talk about the major case that you discuss in the book. it's the case that was prosecuted in canada and i'll let you tell the story, but really i'm interested in what you call the bomb and you can get into that as we told the story but why don't you give the viewers an idea of what that is about and how you got involved? >> sure. again, the program that i was working, where i was working as an undercover had been at this stage 2012, primarily

all national security cases i was working across the country and overseas. and when this case came around, the montrcal residents who was clearly talking to some bad people overseas, al qaeda people , and he had two trips to ran back to back. two consecutive years so there was a bunch of red flags and indicators there that suggested this individual might pose a threat. >> so he had a schedule in california. so the fbi asked if i could again, get in front of him and take his temperature. just to try to get a feel for who he is, his ideology and whether or not he actually posed a threat. >> and that's when you referred to the bump. the bulb is a casual meeting. that's meant to be, meant to look casual and accidental and an effort to insert my

persona, my legend that i have drafted into this individual's life. >> and you describe it in such an interesting way. and i thought it was described in a microcosm what undercover work was. where there was meticulous planning that fell apart almost immediately and you had to work by the seat of your pants to make it work. and when somebody was sitting in your seat on the airplane. >> absolutely. and you know from experience as well that the best laid plans of mice and men. you can craft a intricate plan, you can have an awesome plan, lay it all out but at the end of the day, recorders don't work. surveillance gets lost. something, mistakes will

happen, it's human nature and you have to be prepared for that. i'd like to crack more of the lesson outline and let the subject fit which way i'm going to go. in this particular case, yes, there was a mixup. there was a legitimate mixup but it worked in my favor because again, unlike a criminal subject whose ideological subject, you saw someone who looks like him and was hoping to talk like him and was rewarded when he approached me himself by an individual that could him and his foreign tongue. >> and originally it was supposed to be a short involvement and you were going to go back to your other cases. you were just as you said taking his temperature but thatchange quickly, partly because of the good work that you did in establishing a strong bond . >> i appreciate that and i love to see here and tell you

that i'm a brilliant undercover and that was all my mastermind play. but the truth is simply this. when ipushed him away , that was when he tried to recruit me. it wasn't because i was using some multiple masterful technique.i was busy, i had six other cases and in my mind, he was kind of a problem and i did my job. basically i said i'm confident that he's a danger and that i was going to give them my report so that they can follow up on it. i didn't think i ever see him again so it wasn't anything brilliant on my part. it just worked out that way, looking back on it now , of course area when someone tries to recruit you to do something criminal or evil and you push them away, that obviously led him to believe one of the other reasons that i wasn't government. >> that works against five where they think oh, they

basically have a profile of what they think a government administrator will look like and when you don't show them that profile, that works against them. i found the same thing in my cases. >> so how did it turn into a major operation? >>. >> job and i developed that relationship. and like i mentioned before, i thought i never see him again. apparently we maintained relationships through the rest of the summer. i met him in june 2012. we talked regularly on the phone, we email. but i figured that was me keeping up appearances. and intelligence was seen that he was traveling to toronto to go on a fishing trip with an unknown individual . so after that so-called

fishing trip that was planned, it turned out to be a reconnaissance mission. >> you were pretty sure of that right from the start when you heard about this fishing trip. >> it goes back to the mindset. it's not anythingspecial , i make the argument that i'm never the smartest person in any room i walked into but it's my culture, it's my religion and it's what i do. when i'm talking about the mindset and i spent a good deal of time with him, i know his rationale. i know his thought process. he washes his feet, his teeth stay healthy so he doesn't have to waste time going to a dentist. each so he can survive, so he can continue on the path of allah. he doesn't do anything for

pleasure. he does everything for necessity to stay on that path. it's an extremist view that everything he does is on the path of allah. and the way that he views that path was always with jihad. and that's what separated him and that's what i tried to explain in the thesis during that meeting. >> that's that canadian security service. >> it turned out that your intuition was correct, then in fact they work fishing. they were on some kind of scouting mission looking fora potential target . >> --

>> it's just different but we did have that wall back before 9/11. that was meant to protect intelligence assets and techniques from the court in discovery. i get it. but at this point this is just an intelligence operation in canada whereas the fbi often wears to ask, intelligence and -- once they realize this was a reconnaissance mission they knew they were looking to blow up a train and derail a train and kill people it became law enforcement action in canada so they headed over to the rcmp and all they could tell them at the point, here are the two subjects. subjects. they're planning a terrorist attack on canadian soil and by the way the leader of the cell, his best friend is an undercover fbi agent. that's it. that's pretty much what the rcmp

received and they had to generate the investigation and take it from there. that's when phone calls were made to fbi headquarters, eventually from new york, and once all the protections were met we were able to quickly get me deployed and operational with all the countermeasures in place. >> host: viewers for people who read your book might not realize the bureaucratic nightmare that must've been involved. it might be assumed that candidate is a close ally and a neighbor and that it easy for fbi agent to simply operate in canada but it's actually not. >> guest: actually, yes, because the law is different of one century there was a lot, and you go into it in the book how it was a little irregular from

the way you used to operating in the united states. >> guest: absolutely spot on. i'm looking back on it now. i'm shocked at how quick we are able to get everything done. that's just a testament to foreign partners with a common goal in defeating terrorism. but i will say it was the first of its kind, a cross-border law enforcement and intelligence operation. that's never happened before in both of our histories and i'm very proud to be a part of that. we were able to move really quickly initially. it was understood that was an anniversary attack. i think it was assumed at some level that the anniversary was 9/11. mind you this was labor day weekend so we had about eight days to act. but it turned out that the anniversary that was interpreted was actually the anniversary of jesus christ's birthday, literal

translation and they will they e looking to derail it on christmas day. >> host: interesting. talk a little bit about the plot that you described. >> guest: the plot basically was to derail a train from new york city to toronto, to kill as many americans and canadians as possible. this was supposed to be done over a body of water that was as shallow as possible so that there's no chance for survival and 81 would die. it was supposed to take place on christmas day, because they would've had very little light. the plan was to hit a train that was around 7 p.m. so they would be able to start getting the attack in place around 5 p.m. and not be seen under the cover of darkness. my role was to upload a video that they were going to

prerecorded, send a message to americans and canadians that they are here, they are not leaving. leave the muslim occupied lands, remove our troops from their lands, or this will continue to happen again and again. >> host: and originally although he had this fast friendship from your plane trip across country, he had another key made that he had brought onto this plot that was with him when he went to scout the railroad trestle. >> guest: yes. as a matter of fact they were the original to. he had known him for quite some time and they had been talking about it but he brought them on well before he brought me on. >> host: and what do you think his motivation was? >> guest: [inaudible] >> , he is the primary subject

to play with and then jasser, you've got a later was a colleague of his look at this trade trestle. >> guest: jasser is the palestinian in toronto who was also extremely evil, was looking to hurt people. he had a bit of a complex in the sense that he didn't like taking orders from al-qaeda senior leadership. he believed that he's been in canada for 20 years and that he was than they did knew how to hurt these people. he had bigger dreams, bigger plants, he had sniper attacks, active shooter type attacks. he wanted to be the leader and call the shots, and he did not like the fact that others were the leader in taking orders from al-qaeda senior leadership there was a bit of a rep from the get-go but he was

still on board and he wanted, he was an active participant in planning to derail that train. >> host: and he was a phd student? >> guest: correct. >> host: in canada studying. how much did the work that he was doing in his phd come comio play for raise concerns for you? >> guest: well, he works with infectious diseases in a lab, so obviously his trips to iran, his conversations online, his motivation was obvious he something we need to figure out quickly because of exactly that but what fascinates me about chiheb, unless it was one of the main reasons i wanted to write this book. a lot of times i hear americans saying or asking what radicalized these people? how does this happen? how do you go from a normal

person do that? we highlight this free will in the book and the very proud of that. chiheb was or is a brilliant scientist. iq off the charts, impressive interior infectious diseases. and he goes from that to be able to be such a gift to humanity. in two years time, , less than o years time ends up one step removed from the leader of al-qaeda. and that story fascinates me because of the fact that i -- not that i'm a counterterrorism operative but the fact that the world should understand why he did what he did, how we did what he did. and i think that is again part of the deep dive into that terrorists might instead and its the first step for all of us to really understand our enemy.

>> host: and you ended up spending quite a bit of time in canada went back and forth between toronto and québec and montréal with these subjects and others. how did that work out for you? i i mean, it must've been difficult understand how the canadian system work. you mentioned one part with a didn't tell you where the cameras were in a room which it that was true, when i was in, i would've been quite upset about as well. >> guest: yeah, absolutely. with your experience you understand we like to be behind the scenes. i walked into secret compartment information for so and get all the classified information i needed but to do the job we did, mike, you need that pattern of life, that she was stepping so we want and all dump on our subject. nothing was off limits to us and it was our job as professional

undercover stability put up a wall from the law enforcement side to the undercover side, and that was on us. that was the switch that we had to flip internally. so when you go to canada, again, i'm not saying it's right or wrong. it's just different. i understand why they do it that way, but undercover are treated differently in the sense they are not given anything behind the scenes because they don't want them to react to it as if they already know it. they don't want them to try to finagle a room because they know where the cameras are that they want everything to be natural. i get it, but it's just that you think i was ever used to. so clearly i was a little offended when i wasn't told the things that i would normally be told. so yes. >> host: that's the way i look at it, the more information i have, the better decisions i could meet when something inevitably went awry. if i didn't have the right information i could make a

mistake that could have easily been avoided. >> guest: that's exactly how i i feel. again, i understand how they do it but that's not how i worked for my entire career. >> host: it comes into play in one of the short story in your book where, i used to expand the people that the subject, the target of the investigation, was not really the undercover agents natural enemy. you can work with that person. it was the tech agents, the agents up with the microphones together and the different recording devices in cameras that were the natural enemy of the undercover agent because they so often would not work or at some kind of problem, somebody decided a good way to record conversations in a car would be that make up a gps machine with some kind of device. how did that go wrong? >> guest: well, we actually don't go into the specifics of

what the equipment was in the book for obvious reasons, but i will tell you that apparently there is this one section in montréal that's extremely industrial, electrical lines and all kinds of stuff going on, and i managed to go to the one place on earth that somehow someway reversed the polarity of the said equipment so that i i actually heard my cover gene and it became more of a receiver that a transmitter. so yes, that, my heart dropped. i think was maybe three, maybe four seconds tops but it felt like a minute. >> host: i i can imagine. reading it i had chills thinking about how quickly you have to respond and you're are able toe machine off very quickly. within your left without a gps device and got lost. >> guest: i probably should have blamed on something other than my gps, but you're right. the telltale thing is that's

what we do. we are all trained to react and expect the unexpected, but the thing in that particular situation that was a little disheartening was, he was on his way out of the car. i didn't have the opportunity to read his body language after this snafu but probably would've felt a lot more comfortable if i could see that he came down, but his hair without any got out of the car and that was it until later that night. >> host: and that's always a hard thing, is there so much no matter how much would you do behind the scenes, there so much you don't know about what's going on in a persons head and where some small mistake might have been your undoing. talk a little bit about, this team have that's putting together was expanding, or what your concerns about a possible expansion work.

>> guest: regarding other recruitment he was doing? >> host: right, a particularly, i understand there was an american he kept talking about. >> guest: oh, yes. again, we were up there to stop a terrorist plot. what we do, the fbi, the rcmp, the intelligence agency, that's our job. obviously that's what i was happy to do. but it gave me a pit in my stomach that floored me, was during the conversation in the car ride, six hour car ride from montréal to toronto runs going to meet jaser, the other conspirator in this plot, chiheb revealed to me that there was an individual that trained in iran prior to him, that his trainer always called -- which means the american. he said that somewhat in

passing, and i got a huge hit in my stomach and i asked him, chiheb, what do you mean? i asked him to elaborate? and he revealed to me that there is a version of him in the united states, but he's sleeping right now. he's an american sleeper. right then and there on the heels of it being september 11, there was a ton of emotion. i was up there with a bunch of guys from the new york division, my team, case agent, everyone. so this hit home with us obviously because the investigation just took on a whole new face for us. >> host: but the canadians were interested in wrapping this case up. they had enough evidence they thought to charge chiheb and

jaser. how did that, in fact, you and the investigation that you never wanted to conduct in the united states? >> guest: well, at the time obviously all of us, the grunts on the ground, the case agent, the contact agent, joey, nelly, the guys were intimately involved in this investigation, we didn't want it to end. we had a platform set up to that threats on both sides of the border. we were ready to keep it going. but yes, was i upset that the canadians wanted to pull the trigger? yeah, of course, at the time. but you step back from it now and you look at it. the canadian investigation for all intents and purposes was wrapped up in about three and a half weeks in september of 2012. they had what they needed for successful prosecution. we didn't take this case down until april 22, 2013. they gave us over seven

additional months to continue our investigation, to draw the intel out of chiheb rank them to make our connections overseas to do what we could identify the american sleeper. but on the heels of the boston marathon bombing and what, you know, a few other political issues that were taking place, i understand why they wrap it up. i didn't want it to end. we didn't want it to end, but i understand why it ended. >> host: obviously the boston marathon bombing must admit everybody think we don't want to wait one day too late in any case, but you mentioned other political reasons and there was a piece of legislation going through the canadian legislature that is referred to as the canadian patriot act, and you mentioned in the book that this case provided some of of the ny justification for passing that and it passed quickly after the arrests were made public.

>> guest: yeah. i mean, that's how it happened. i don't know if that was the motivation. we can all speculate all day long, but, unfortunately, sometimes politics finds its way into law enforcement, you know. it is what it is, but i did it. i just wasn't happy with it. >> host: so the arrests are made. you are going back to work in other cases, and not figuring that you're going to testify, but they need you. how did that work for you and what were your concerns and how were they addressed? >> guest: well, as you know, mike, terrorism cases rarely go to trial, especially when you're the type of evidence that we had. i thought that was it. we got arrested in new york.

another individual in this investigation, and chiheb got arrested in montréal and jaser got arrested in toronto. figured that was that. got to the undercover apartments, spent the night there and went about my business after that. several months later i received a subpoena from the royal crown telling me that i have to testify in the case. all my fears came back as to why we were worried about doing this cross-border law enforcement operation, because the protections that i have here in the u.s., you know, my country protects my identity every step of the way in the legal process so that my identity would never be revealed so i can continue to do the work that i do. but we were not sure that the canadian courts would see it that way. we also knew that i didn't have a choice, i had to testify

because not just are they an ally, but they needed me to testify in order to put them away. the national security law branch argued successfully with the royal crown to get me the same protections, and the canadians went above and beyond the call of duty. a protected my identity. they gave me a security detail that was second to none. private planes flew in and out of the country. i didn't have to worry about our metrics. they cleared the courtroom. only essential personnel, rcmp personnel in the courtroom. they took the media out of the courtroom and did cctv for them to see everything but me. there were not allowed to record my voice. every protection order was met and i was able to testify for over three weeks on the stand, and thankfully get guilty verdicts, and they are now serving life sentences.

>> host: and chiheb chose to represent himself as a understand it. what was the interaction with him like in the courtroom? >> guest: well, there was the first time i saw him upon walking into the courtroom, and he gave me a blank is stare i've ever gotten in my life. i testified many times before in court in drug cases and other types of cases, but never any terrorism case and everyone where i established this length of her relationship with someone. so it struck the obvious i didn't know how to feel at that moment, but i wasn't comfortable with the stair. i wanted him to look angry. i wanted to look away or laugh that make him something. it was too late of the stair that kind of spooked me. and then i look over to him, or right next to it and its jaser, he's leaning for any could wait to make eye contact with me. he looked around the room to

make sure no one was looking, and he mouth to me, i will find you. and it was right at that moment it took me back to my drug days, and i felt so much more at ease after that. it called me down and i was ready to get started. >> host: now, at the end of the trial you are described quite a bit of fairly bizarre behavior that chiheb was involved in during the course of the investigation, but apparently some of his courtroom antics caused the judge to order a psychiatric exam that came back and said that he was schizophrenic and possibly psychotic. were you aware of that at the time, or were you already gone? and if you look back at some of his actions and maybe look at them differently? >> guest: no. i will say this.

i'm going to tread lightly on his mental state since the because, as you know, there are appeals coming up, but i will say this much. there is absolutely no doubt in my mind, mike, that he knew right from wrong. he knew to take countermeasures, counter surveillance. his operational security was second to none in the sense that he would make me take batteries out of my phone, shut phones down, circle the block. he is always eyeing anybody up that is near us. he questioned another undercover i brought in, interrogated him almost, to make sure that he was one of us. he understood that what we were doing, quote-unquote, was killing people, and that even by his own admission, when i pretended to have some remorse about doing this, i wasn't sure i wanted him to explain to me, he went on to give me a 22

minute soliloquy about the justifications and rationalizations of taking innocent lives. he justified them religiously in his mind, in his work views, and he justified them scientifically -- worked -- i highlight that in the chapter christian burial speech. it's imperative that anybody can say anything after-the-fact and say well, i was this, this, yes, i was this. knowing right from wrong, i will leave courts to decide. i will give it to the courts to decide whether you are not legally whatever, that something. but i will say right now my opinion, he absolutely knew what he was doing. >> host: and obviously it doesn't take a genius to do harm to people. i'm just wondering what, where there were references, in particular there was a reference to come to mention elma sewall

and he pointed at an fbi wanted poacher which was a neat trick that your case agent suggested to you, and identified somebody. but that person was not an iranian but actually a palestinian who was involved with the organization back in the 1980s. how did you think about that? >> i honestly believed that, mind you, before chiheb saw that picture, before nellie the case agent had the brilliant idea putting those pictured in front of him, essentially we did a photo lineup and undercover capacity. >> host: that was brilliant. >> guest: it wasn't something i never would've thought about him and went belly suggested at safe house at first, my knee-jerk reaction was like, we can do that.

and as we digested it he was spot on and not only did work, it worked brilliantly. but before chiheb tows taws pie you have to understand something, mike. he described him to me because were still can't figure out who he was before nelly came up with this idea, he described the scar on his left eye. he told me essentially that he was 47 years old, okay? this is 2012, and he was born in 1965. he told me that he wasn't from iran, but he only spoke these languages to hinder he described his hair, his eyes, his build, his background. everything that was in there, except for place of birth, and the only thing he said that doesn't make sense, because he didn't speak arabic. he spoke farsi. that was his reasoning. basically his ration of their is a scientist is, every

palestinian speaks arabic, and he's right, they do. so again, that's why i wholeheartedly believed when he snapped and his reaction, he looked at the face, yeah, that was him. >> host: there was, one last person you just mentioned briefly, and that case, well, describe what happened in that case it didn't get all that you were hoping for. yeah, well, basically we find out during the course of the investigation was essentially chiheb's radicalized. he was from québec city, another brilliant engineer who was studying nuclear engineering, yet another scary field to have this type of mindset, and when,, probably, i don't know, a dozen people that chiheb put me in front of, i was probably

something to say, none of them were even remotely a threat in my professional opinion. when he put me in front of abassi, that was a different animal. he had that look and the speech, the rhetoric, the hatred and the evil in his eyes, and i was excited to peel those layers back. >> host: and just didn't have the time or? >> guest: we did have the time. i reported to my handlers at the time, both sides, the u.s. and canada, what i suspected that. >> translator: was. when he traveled to tunisia, the canadiens revoked his visa so that he couldn't come back because they felt like okay, if he's a threat, well then, we don't need them here. that's all well and good. >> host: it's been wonderful talk and you and appreciate you writing the book. i think it's a lot in there for all of us to learn. let's just make clear that.

>> translator: was not convicted of any terrorism related charges. he was convicted of, you know better than i do. >> guest: yeah, absolutely. >> host: he was convicted on a visa fraud charge, is that correct? >> guest: yes, it was visa fraud. he was initially charged with terrorism related charges but he played to a lesser charge and deported, correct. >> host: great. tamer, i wish you luck as you continue your career. i'm sure you will be very much in demand, and if there's anything else that you like to say, this is your moment. i'm sure you will have more before you go back undercover. >> guest: i appreciate it. yeah, i would love just to act with the sentiments of my book, and i hope many americans get an opportunity to read it, and we

will echo my sentiments regardless of where you are in the political spectrum, it doesn't matter, this and more about humanity, more about our nation, our country being united as opposed to divided. i wholeheartedly believe that what makes america great is the fact that we truly are everyone. we are every race, religion, ethnicity. and like i said earlier, when we are threatened by an enemy, chances are with someone who looks like them or sounds like them out to feed into education and inclusion are our best defense. thanks a lot, mike. i appreciate your time. >> host: thank you. >> guest: thank you. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable-television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider.