Bilal Alkaisi

Federal authorities presented formal charges Thursday against key suspect Mahmud Abouhalima and a lesser figure as they began closing the circle of people sought in the bombing of New York's World Trade Center. In a day of fast-paced developments, Jim Esposito, head of the FBI's Newark, N.J., office, said "the circle is now very narrow," with five people in custody and one more being pursued. At the same time, James M.

Federal authorities presented formal charges Thursday against key suspect Mahmud Abouhalima and a lesser figure as they began closing the circle of people sought in the bombing of New York's World Trade Center. In a day of fast-paced developments, Jim Esposito, head of the FBI's Newark, N.J., office, said "the circle is now very narrow," with five people in custody and one more being pursued. At the same time, James M.

Two of the defendants awaiting trial in the bombing of the World Trade Center attempted suicide at a federal prison in Manhattan, their lawyers said. Bilal Alkaisi, 27, and Ahmad Ajaj, 27, are charged in the Feb. 26 bombing that killed six and injured more than 1,000 people. Most of the Muslim defendants are said to be on a hunger strike in protest against prison conditions.

Prosecutors dropped all World Trade Center bombing charges against a Jordanian on Monday, admitting they lacked evidence to convict him. He pleaded guilty to a lesser count of lying on an immigration form. Bilal Alkaisi, 29, will not cooperate with prosecutors under the deal, his lawyer, Robert L. Ellis, said after a hearing in federal court. He continues to be held without bail pending his sentencing July 13. Alkaisi was one of seven Muslim fundamentalists charged in the Feb. 26, 1993, bombing.

A new defendant was named Wednesday in the World Trade Center bombing in an indictment in which authorities charged that he helped mix explosives used in the February blast that killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Abdul Rahman Yasin, the latest suspect, is believed to be in Iraq where he traveled the day after the FBI made its first arrest in the case, seizing Mohammed A.

Three weeks after determining that money from overseas flowed to some suspects in the World Trade Center bombing, federal investigators have been frustrated at their inability to find the source of the funds. "We've been a little bit stymied on the money trail," one of them acknowledged Friday, explaining that at least several thousand dollars has been traced from a doctor in Germany to a New Jersey account held by Mohammed A. Salameh and Nidal Ayyad, the first two suspects arrested by the FBI.