Self-burned man is key terror witness

New York, NY, Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A man who set fire to himself outside the White House is in fact a key informant in a major terror funding prosecution, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

A native of Yemen, Mohamed Alanssi, is recovering in a Washington hospital with extensive burns after he set fire to himself outside the White House Monday when his demand to see President Bush was denied.

Law enforcement officials told the newspaper Alanssi had been paid about $100,000 for his work in building a case against a Yemeni cleric who allegedly was funneling as much as $20 million to al-Qaida. But Alanssi had been in a dispute with the FBI recently and had been voicing complaints about his treatment by federal agents and threatening suicide.

Tuesday, the cleric's defense lawyers identified Alanssi as the central informer in the case, and said they would seek to undermine his ultimate usefulness to the prosecution because of the bizarre suicide attempt.