January 12, 2002	Saturday	Shawwal 27, 1422

TALLAHASSEE, Jan 11: Law enforcement officials in Florida said on Thursday they had uncovered a plot to assassinate Florida Governor Jeb Bush, the younger brother of President George W. Bush.

They said they were investigating a potential threat to use a car bomb to kill him.

Extra guards surrounded the state capitol building on Friday, but otherwise it was business as usual for the president’s brother.

Jeb Bush did not alter his appointments.

“Nothing has changed, if it does we’ll let you know,” a Bush spokesman said when asked if the governor had altered his routine in response to the threat.

The probe centres on a letter addressed to Bush last month, a van and a jailed confidential informant who claims to have heard of an attempt by a group of Middle Easterners to use an explosive-packed vehicle to try and kill the younger Bush.

Law enforcement officials are taking the threat seriously, but a state official speaking on the condition of anonymity told Reuters early on Friday that there are serious questions about the integrity of the informant, who has made many “off the wall” comments and failed numerous lie detector tests in connection with his story.

Even so, law enforcement officials are taking no chances.

“All threats against the governor are taken seriously,” Tim Moore, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement commissioner, said in a statement.

“During this heightened state of alert in the nation and the state of Florida, all necessary precautions are being taken to guarantee the governor’s safety,” he said, referring to increased security around the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Inside the Florida capitol, lawmakers met to pore over plans to redraw political boundaries while scores of high school students toured the complex. Bush was scheduled to hold an afternoon news conference to introduce his appointment to head the Florida Department of Elder Affairs.

Outside, police and law enforcement personnel bolstered security at a handful of checkpoints, including the loading dock beneath the 22-story capitol building that houses the office of Florida’s top elected official.

News of the investigation emerged late on Thursday in a report by the Miami Herald, which said the FBI and Florida law enforcement were investigating a possible plot to kill the governor with a truck bomb in the state capital Tallahassee.

No other details were immediately available on the letter to Bush received in December. The Herald said the investigations were based on a tip from a confidential informant jailed in the Fort Lauderdale area.

Bush returned to the governor’s mansion late on Thursday from a trip to Pennsylvania that included a stop in Washington for a fund-raising event with the president.

The governor was briefed upon his return and was satisfied with the status of the investigation and the level of security, spokeswoman Katie Bauer said.

“It’s disconcerting, but the governor has full faith and confidence in our state law enforcement and he is going to let them do their job,” Bauer told Reuters.

The Herald quoted an agent involved in the case as saying that for about a month, federal and state agents had been conducting a 24-hour surveillance of at least four south Florida men with possible Middle Eastern connections who might be suspects in the case. The informant said the men were trying to contact somebody to drive a truckload of explosives to Tallahassee and blow up the governor, the newspaper said.

The Herald said the informant supplied the names of three people of Middle Eastern origin who were known to the FBI for their involvement with explosives in south Florida in 1993. It said the informant also gave information about a van owner who might be involved.

The newspaper said agents found the van and searched it on Thursday. They found no explosives, but bomb-sniffing dogs alerted them to the presence of something suspicious. Agents arrested a man who was near the van, possibly the driver, on immigration-related charges.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, dozens of FBI agents fanned out over south Florida, finding that some of the 19 men named by the FBI as the hijackers in the airborne assaults had lived in Florida in the months before the attacks and had attended Florida flight schools.—Reuters