Moussaoui dreamed of flying plane into White House

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia (CNN) -- A man accused of plotting suicide attacks on American targets in Singapore and the Philippines testified Wednesday that Zacarias Moussaoui dreamed about flying a plane into the White House.

Witness Faiz Bafana, alleged to have been a treasurer for Jemmah Islamiyah, al Qaeda's sister group in Southeast Asia, said he heard about the dream when he hosted Moussaoui in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in 2000.

Jurors heard the testimony from a videotaped deposition recorded four years ago. On the tape, Bafana said Moussaoui told him that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whom they called "the Sheikh," was aware of his dream.

"The Sheikh said go ahead," Bafana recalled Moussaoui telling him.

The testimony bolsters the government's contention that Moussaoui sought to fulfill his dream by coming to the U.S. for flight training in 2001. Moussaoui admitted his goal and bin Laden's sanction of it when he pleaded guilty to terrorism conspiracy last year.

Both Moussaoui and Bafana allegedly underwent military training at al Qaeda's camps in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

In 2000, a Jemmah Islamiyah member asked Bafana to provide Moussaoui accommodations, and Bafana let him use an extra bedroom in his apartment, according to the deposition tape. The two men spoke in English about jihad, or holy war, in a dining room with bookshelves filled with Islamic texts.

Moussaoui told Bafana he felt it unsafe to speak freely in the house. The two men went outside and sat on a playground bench. It was there that Moussaoui shared his dream, Bafana said.

Bafana said Moussaoui also talked about acquiring materials for explosives -- ammonium nitrate and aluminum powder -- to be used in terrorist attacks.

The next day, Bafana tried to take Moussaoui to get flight training in Malaysia, the reason al Qaeda sent him there, according to the 9/11 commission, but it didn't work out.

Bafana said he and al Qaeda's main contact in Southeast Asia, "Hambali," were wary of Moussaoui.

"You thought Mr. Moussaoui was cuckoo, right?" Bafana was asked on the tape by defense attorney Frank Dunham, who is no longer on the case.

"Yes," Bafana said.

"And you couldn't wait to get him out of there?" Dunham asked

"Yes," the witness said.

Bafana said he helped Moussaoui open an e-mail account at a cybercafe in Kuala Lumpur. It was from this account, according to the government, that Moussaoui e-mailed the Airman Flight School in Norman, Oklahoma, where he trained to pilot single-engine planes in February 2001.

The videotaped deposition was recorded in November 2002, a time when Moussaoui was still acting as his own attorney.

Moussaoui could be seen in the right corner of the screen in his green prison jumpsuit. He objected 18 times in the first hour alone.

Bafana, 43, a Singapore native with joint citizenship in Malaysia, was arrested on December 16, 2001, in Singapore. He was accused of violating the nation's Internal Security Act.

Bafana said he joined a precursor group of Jemmah Islamiyah in 1987, and arranged travel and bought weapons for operatives. He was familiar with bin Laden's 1998 fatwa, or religious declaration, "to attack the American interests whether military or civilian."

In 1999, Bafana said he and Hambali traveled to Karachi, Pakistan, and met al Qaeda's operations leader, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, whom they knew as "Muktar." The men pored over maps of the Middle East and discussed possible attacks on U.S. and western military installations, Bafana said.

Mohammed has been identified as the planner behind al Qaeda's plot to hijack airliners and crash them into prominent American buildings.

Jemmah Islamiyah is blamed for the October 2002 nightclub bombings on Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people, and an August 2003 hotel bombing in Jakarta, Indonesia, that killed 12.

Moussaoui, 37, a French citizen of Moroccan heritage, is the only person to face charges in the United States related to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

With his guilt established, the jury will decide only his punishment, either death by injection or life in prison without possibility of parole.