Chilling Terror Testimony
For a glimpse into the chemical warfare training Ressam received, following is an excerpt from testimony he gave in the trial of accomplice Mokhtar Houari:
Question: Why don't you tell the jury about the experiments that you conducted on dogs, you personally, and start with the experiment where you put the dogs in a box… You watched as your chief put a dog in a box, correct?
Ressam: Yes.…
Question: Your chief put cyanide in the box, is that correct?
Ressam: Yes.…
Question: And the dog shortly thereafter died from that experiment, correct?
Ressam: Correct.…
Question: You practiced these techniques on the dogs so that later on in one of your operations you would be able to perform such techniques on human beings, is that correct?
Ressam: Yes. We wanted to know what is the effect of the gas, yes.
Question: Some of your potential targets while you were in the camp were American citizens, is that correct?
Ressam: In regard to targets in general, yes. Yes, we were speaking about America as an enemy of Islam.
Question: The reason one of the examples was to put the cyanide right near the air intake of a building such as a government building, correct?
Ressam: Yes, that's right.
Question: And the reason that you would put the cyanide, you were trained, near the air intake would be to kill the most amount of people without endangering yourself and without being detected, correct?
Ressam: Yes, that's how gas is used in killing.
(Transcript excerpt courtesy of Canadian Broadcasting Company.)