Al-Qaida chiefs differ on 9/11 suspect's role

WASHINGTON - The coordinator of the Sept. 11 plot told interrogators that he believed Zacarias Moussaoui was to participate in the hijackings, but another top al-Qaida detainee said Moussaoui was part of a second wave of attacks, according to a report released Wednesday.

The secret statements of Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, unveiled by the independent commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, provide by far the most specific information to date on the key issue that has stalled Moussaoui's prosecution. Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in connection with 9/11, has been seeking access to the two detainees to bolster his defense. The issue has been tied up in the courts for more than a year.

Binalshibh, the self-described coordinator of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, said he sent $14,000 to Moussaoui in August 2001, on instructions from Mohammed that he understood to be "part of the 9/11 plot," the commission's report says. The report says "there is good reason to believe" that Mohammed was preparing Moussaoui as a potential substitute pilot because one of the 19 hijackers was considering dropping out.

But Mohammed, who was al-Qaida's operations chief, "denies that Moussaoui was ever intended to be part of the 9/11 operation," the report says. Instead, it says, Moussaoui was being groomed for a second wave of attacks on the West Coast after Sept. 11. That wave fizzled and Mohammed said the three pilots who had been recruited for it already had backed out before Moussaoui was arrested in August 2001.

The report acknowledges that the statements of Mohammed and Binalshibh, who are being interrogated at undisclosed locations, are "not entirely consistent."

Edward MacMahon Jr., a lawyer for Moussaoui, criticized the commission for disclosing the information and the government for declassifying it, calling it "selective" and saying it would hamper Moussaoui's ability to get a fair trial. Moussaoui, a French citizen, was indicted in December 2001.

WASHINGTON - The commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks said Wednesday it found no evidence that the Saudi government funded al-Qaida, though the terror network found "fertile fund-raising ground in the kingdom."

The commission specifically cleared the wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, saying it found no evidence she provided money "directly or indirectly" to the Sept. 11 conspiracy.

Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers.

Members of Congress, among others, have questioned whether the royal family provided some support to the hijackers or al-Qaida in general.

Suspicions increased after the Bush administration last year refused to allow the release of a 28-page section of the congressional inquiry into the attacks dealing with foreign support for the hijackers.

The princess, wife of Prince Bandar, came under scrutiny because she had sent checks to the wife of Osama Basnan, one of two Saudi nationals identified in the congressional report as having ties to two of the hijackers while they lived San Diego.

The Saudi government, which strongly denies providing support for terrorists, says those checks were charitable donations to help cover the medical expenses of Basnan's wife.

The commission report said there is no evidence that Basnan and the other Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, provided funding to the two hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.

Today is the last of the commission's public hearings. It will focus on the Federal Aviation Administration and U.S. air defenses. The commission's final report is expected July 26.

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