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Hijacker wired money to bin Laden ally
Compiled from Times wires
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators have discovered that Mohamed Atta, the suicide hijacker believed to have piloted the first jetliner into the World Trade Center, wired several thousand dollars to a top associate of Osama bin Laden three days before the deadly attack. Investigators say the transactions provided them with a direct financial link between Atta, considered a leader of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mustafa Ahmad, a longtime bin Laden ally thought to have helped fund the terrorists. Two other men identified as hijackers -- Marwan al-Shehhi and Waleed Alshehri -- also wired money back from the United States to the United Arab Emirates. Investigators think the money was left over from funds they received to finance the hijackings. Separately, senior officials in the United Arab Emirates said that three of the identified hijackers each wired $5,000 to an unidentified Saudi man in the United Arab Emirates. The man, who landed in the United Arab Emirates in June from neighboring Qatar, left for Karachi, Pakistan, with the $15,000 on Sept. 11. It's not clear if that man, who was not identified by authorities in the United Arab Emirates, was Ahmad, the known bin Laden associate. Since the terrorist attacks, federal investigators have been serving subpoenas on South Florida financial institutions looking for the hijackers' bank accounts. The FBI has also collected electronic cash transfer records from Western Union outlets in Maryland, where Atta sent the money. Last week, President Bush froze the U.S. assets of 27 organizations and individuals that he said had terrorist links. One of the people on the list was Shayk Saiid, also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad. On Sept. 8, Atta sent two separate wire transfers -- about $2,000 each -- from retail outlets in Laurel, Md., to Ahmad in the United Arab Emirates, according to federal documents and interviews. The next day, investigators say, Atta boarded a US Airways flight from Baltimore to Boston. The money trail in the United States also has led to Punta Gorda, where the owner of a mail service business said Atta and another person bought $100 to $200 money orders at her store between four and six times from mid-July to mid-August. Jean Waldorf, owner of the Shipping Post, said she did not know how the money was spent. "He was not a friendly person," she said of Atta. "There was no please, thank you or have a nice day. The main reason I recognized him was his eyes. When he looked at you it was as if he was looking straight through you, very cold, no emotions." Also in Punta Gorda, Elena Martinez says Atta worked for her at Elena's Family Restaurant during last Thanksgiving. He started as a dishwasher the day before Thanksgiving and quit the Saturday after the holiday. In other developments Monday: Two Virginia residents who were charged with providing false documentation to some of the hijackers appeared in court Monday. Luis Martinez-Flores, a 28-year-old El Salvadoran immigrant from Falls Church, Va., was charged with helping get residency cards for Hani Hanjour and Khalid al-Midhar -- two of the men accused of flying an American Airlines plane into the Pentagon. Federal officials Monday also revealed the arrest of Kenys A. Galicia, who is accused of notarizing documents used to obtain Virginia identification cards for two other men who flew planes into the World Trade Center towers. According to the FBI's affidavit, Abdulaziz Alomari obtained a Virginia identification card on Aug. 2. Alomari was aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the north World Trade Center tower. Ahmed Saleh Alghamdi obtained a Virginia identification card the same day. He was aboard the United Airlines plane that flew into the south tower. Both men used false addresses to obtain the ID cards. The paperwork was notarized by Galicia, who worked as a secretary in a private law office in Falls Church, authorities said. In Paris, authorities began questioning Djamel Beghal, a French-Algerian who was extradited Sunday from the United Arab Emirates in connection with an uncovered plot to attack U.S. interests in Europe. Beghal was placed under formal investigation, a step short of being charged. French police have linked him to bin Laden. Beghal, 35, was the second person extradited to France in connection with the plot on the Paris embassy and other U.S. targets in Europe. In Sarajevo, Bosnian authorities announced the arrests of several people suspected of links to global terrorism, including two who were found with box cutters near Sarajevo's airport. The arrests were made by Bosnian police and by SFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping force deployed in Bosnia following the 1992-95 war. SFOR troops arrested four people on Sept. 25 and 26 in the Sarajevo suburb of Ilidza, said a SFOR spokesman, Capt. Daryl Morrell. He did not release further details, but Bosnian television said Sunday night that two of the four were foreign citizens and the others were Bosnians. More than 500 people are in U.S. custody as part of the investigation, 145 of them detained on immigration violations.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
