December 8, 1993

An important witness in the World Trade Center trial, asked yesterday to identify two of the defendants who he said he had encountered hours before the trade center blast, walked around the courtroom and then picked out two members of the jury instead. The witness, Willie Hernandez Moosh, was a gas station attendant in Jersey City whose testimony was clearly seen as an important piece of the Government's case, which is built on a slow accumulation of circumstantial evidence.

With a stern lecture and a final, silent showing of the brutal videotapes with which the case began, a judge today sentenced Damian M. Williams to a maximum 10-year term for a series of beatings that have come to symbolize the Los Angeles riots 19 months ago. Under California law he is likely to serve about three and a half years. "Mr. Williams, it is intolerable in this society to attack and maim people because of their race," said Judge John Ouderkirk of Superior Court, referring to attacks by the black defendant that included the beating of three Hispanic victims, an Asian and a white truck driver, Reginald O. Denny.

Carmelin Diaz, an eighth grader, got out of her second-period class Monday morning and walked down to the first floor at Intermediate School 218 to get her teeth cleaned. In a half hour, she had all her plaque scraped off, flouride and sealant treatments, and X-rays. "O.K., you're almost done," said the school clinic's hygienist, Evelyn Medina, diving into Carmelin's mouth one last time. "Now this is how you massage the gums, over here you do the gum line. Don't be afraid of a little blood. O.K., you feel it? O.K.? O.K." Then Carmelin got a free toothbrush, an appointment to see the school dentist and a pass back to her community arts class.

International Deep disagreement over France's attempt to finance its film industry and protect it against U.S. competition is gaining prominence in the GATT talks for a new world trade accord. [ Page A1. ] Japan plans to open its rice market to imports, removing an obstacle to a trade pact, but causing political turmoil. [ D1. ]

For more than 30 people, the anxious, unimaginable wait for information about their sons and daughters, fathers and mothers, husbands and wives ended in the decorated lobby of Village Hall in Garden City, a half-mile from the station where the Long Island Rail Road train stopped after a gunman opened fire in a car crowded with commuters. The police had ordered everyone who arrived, frantic, at the station to wait in the Village Hall for information, beneath the sparkling garlands, red bows and Christmas wreathes. They began gathering by 8 o'clock, and they waited and waited.