Office in S.L. a terror target?

A building in downtown Salt Lake City was considered a terrorist target in the weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing, according to internal FBI memos recently made public.

A communique from FBI headquarters suggested the building, which houses the U.S. Attorney's Office for Utah, was to be the third target on a nationwide terror spree. The first target was the federal building in Oklahoma City.

"The third target is an attack at the north east corner of 2nd Street and State street south of the *(Not the target), Salt Lake City, Utah, slated for a lethal type device on 6/19/95 (daylight hours)," the memo reads.

Other targets included buildings in Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Las Vegas and Chicago.

The memo was included in a series of documents given to Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue, who has filed a freedom of information lawsuit against the FBI and CIA in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing. Trentadue is investigating the death of his brother, Kenny, a convicted bank robber who was picked up for a parole violation in the frantic months after the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168.

Trentadue believes Kenny was mistaken for an associate of convicted bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols and killed in an interrogation that went horribly awry. The federal government maintains Kenneth Trentadue committed suicide in his federal prison cell.

The 23 pages of memos released to Jesse Trentadue are heavily redacted. Some still say "secret" on them, while others say "unclassified." A few make reference to McVeigh, Nichols and other extremists. Some reference calls and letters alerting them to other threats — including the one in Salt Lake City.

The memo said FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., received a letter postmarked April 24, 1995 from "Locating Research, California" that identified six "USATargets to be destroyed by bombs or other unidentified means." It claims that the orchestrators of the attacks have ties to Libya, "supported from a training site in eastern Iran, west of Zabol … financial and technical backing is coming from a world-wide cartel out of Bulgaria."

The memo went out to FBI field offices the day after the letter was received on April 28, 1995. It says "Locating Research, California" can't be found and seeks FBI and CIA help to verify the claims.

"It's pending litigation, so we can't comment on it," FBI Special Agent Juan Becerra of the Salt Lake City field office said when asked about the memos on Wednesday.

Trentadue did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment, but attached the memos as an exhibit in a filing in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City earlier this month.

Trentadue wants to know what the FBI knew before and after the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. A federal judge in Salt Lake City ruled last year that he could depose Nichols, but government lawyers have appealed that decision.

E-MAIL: bwinslow@desnews.com