Former Prosecutor Recounts 1993 World Trade Center Bombing 25 Years Later

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Andrew C McCarthy, who led  the 1995 terrorism prosecution against Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman (The Blind Sheikh), reflected on the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center on The Rich Zeoli Show on 1210am WPHT.

McCarthy said "it became" apparent "to me very quickly that this was a much bigger problem than maybe we understood, but certainly, than we were leading on."

He continued, "We didn't have a good legal architecture" for dealing with terrorism because we "didn't have much international terrorism directed at our country domestically. We really didn't have good statutes for it like we have for other problems."

McCarthy also said, "They (the government) tried to minimize the problems as just a couple of dozen knuckleheads from Jersey City" rather than "clarify where the threat was coming from within the Islamic community."

As the 9-month trial went on, McCarthy said he "became more convinced that this was a military and intelligence problem rather than a law enforcement issue."

McCarthy joked, "There is a reason our case (The Blind Sheik) didn't get the attention it should have. Virtually everyday that we were on trial, they were doing a little thing called People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson.

"We only had the future of civilization but they had race and sex and drugs and rock'n roll."